Apocalypsis
by Gojirob
Summary: The Highlander episodes 'Comes A Horseman' and 'Revelation 6:8' retold in elder prose.
1. Apocalypsis, Book One

Apocalypsis  
Book One  
by Rob Morris

What wonders upon wonders do the times-not-yet hold?

Is the future, then, the province of a red-haired boy, descendant of a Connor who can have no bloodline descendants, taught by a Ramirez millennia dead, and opposed by that Kortan, greatest of arch-fiends, whose name is known to no one at all?

Is the future, then, the province of four star-sailors, one bold, one cautious, one emissary and one survivor?

Is the future, then, the province of steadfast and eager travelers-through-time, erasing the value of history scrolls with their every movement?

The future is no one's province, this is known, and this is certain. Good will like as not out, for evil overreaches and topples itself, but who can say? No one that may be readily spoken with, and this is known, and this is certain.

But where plans are made, and where counsel is kept, and where the infinite paths lead is of less import than we meager ones might think. For the future becomes the past, and omega becomes alpha with a dizzied swiftness. What of it that we may not know the future as it is made before it is made? If we are wise, we are so privileged to watch the future as it happens.

And now we shall be so wise.

Witness now the city-port called Seacouver, and wonder not at what state, or what province. They are of less import than four who dwell and have come there. Their paths cross, in this telling, and the lightning that roars is the Quickening from Gaia herself.

Now, an Immortal's life is not all swords, and heads, and runnings. Make room for much merriment, every Immortal knows.

One of the very youngest knew this well. So could it be less well known with the very Oldest?

"Bah, and I say Bah! These games of chance test not knowledge, but merely trivial matters. I can scarce credit that you had brought us to such a remove."

The one who spoke this was a vexer, by many shadings of the word. He did not of will seek the Game. He trusted too well, and too readily, and had seen much of the world and learned little. Yet so many plotters and planners and schemers found his sword buried in their necks, and they did not feel this for very long. He was Duncan Of The Clan Macleod, Mastered First By Connor, His Blood Where Blood Could Not Be.

"Are your clan colors on those tartans and kilts all turned green, like sons of Eire? I think that my youngish friend is jealous of my knowledge, taken here, there, and everywhere. I say that this small game is but my contribution to the betterment of all accuracy, and history needs such so very badly."

The one who said this was a man known well and not known at all. He knew aught before his first head, and aye, little directly after. He had walked as a nigh penultimate sinner and as earthly father to a man said by some to have died for sinners. He was Methos, and if his friend was four hundred years, then he himself was four hundred score.

"I think that those folk well loved me, and wished my speedy return to these halls, you Highlander."

"The Oldest fails to see what I do. Were The Kraken to smile while baring its many teeth to them, they would love it just as well. Add to all that, your fabled accuracy is a measured thing."

"No, and no. My care is not the composers of song or dance. I know of fiendish Nero's diameter. I know that Helen was not so fair. These things, it is known, are important. And so little is."

They both knew well what they took in next, and that was the presence of another. Reunion, Revenge or both were well at hand.

"Shall there be company, then, when we take supper?"

"I have not invited such, but who knows? Oldest, I will see what meal they seek, and God wills it, walk again with you anon."

"I know only of fate, not gods. But I have business at the houses of learning. Do what you will, Highlander."

They walked away, expecting much, and correctly predicting nothing. That Highlander rounded his corner, and saw a chilling sight, and he was not quickly given to chills.

"Can it be that one, that fiend, that Koren? Rare is it that any foeman has so shrouded my heart in fear. Yet so it is with that Koren."

In a quick instant, that Highlander placed himself to a Texas of legend, and to a battle with an outlaw bandit so fearsome, that legendary hero, that masked rider of silvery horse, would not face him down  
except to shoo his movements.

For such a one was that Koren, yet that Highlander knew him not at all. His knowledge would know increase, in this. Then he would wish it never had.

* * *

SOUTH TEXAS, 1867

They were stout men, those Rangers of The Plains and Prairies. They were to inspire fear of law in those who knew no such, and this they did well. Men might say that the gunshot that removes a gun without also destroying the hand that holds a gun is all a mob's fiction. But for those Rangers, it was all true.

Those Rangers yet knew fear and trepidation that fateful day. It was well that they did so, for on this day they hunted The Cat, Murderous Mel Koren. Their stern leader, a friend to the lost and legendary Reid Brothers, turned to his men and stoked both their fires and their fears, for he well knew that they would need both in goodly measure.

"The Lone Star shines down upon Justice, this is known. Whether the colors of the flag we have fought against ere Lincoln fell, or of the flag that fleeing lawyers left in Richmond, or of the flag of Crockett, Bowie, and Houston, with that Lone Star I have invoked, these colors all bear one true mark. They Do Not Run. Nor Shall We."

Many men queried their bold leader. They did this as they espied the wagons that were more destroyed than robbed. Children, some still new and fresh, were shot like dogs as they ran to a false and taunting safety. They had viewed bloody things, and been bloody things, and made bloody things out of the carcasses of other men.

But what those brazen Comancheros had done seemed more a fate to befall Egypt, and Babylon, and Troy, and were mostly not seen but spoken of in churches and schools. These wagoneers had been boiled in a jar of the past, or of the end-days. What had such rot to do with the present, when a new country under Heaven followed its manifest destiny?

"You say that we do not run. Yet still I have heard it said by mouths I know speak only truth that Mel Koren may not die."

One by one, their words were said and known.

"I'll vouchsafe what he has said and go to my own clan, whom no one may gainsay and yet keep his life's blood. My brother who is a merchant in Oklahoma saw that Koren was stabbed a triple score of times, and oft as not laughed hearty as he was let blood."

"I will take their two tales as the stakes in a game of chance. Seeing them as such, I raise upon their wagers. For I rode with John Reid, the day that Ranger was cut down by Cavendish, Koren's wild card, now tossed away. My leg grew lame from old plagues, and so I was a distant lookout. John Reid and his Brother Daniel each were marksman as fine as the bold masked rider who avenged them of late. They each placed, in my sighting, and my sighting is better than fair, twenty bullets in parts of Mad Mel Koren. But he laughed, as has been told, and told that fiend Cavendish to have merry with the fallen Rangers. Koren's last act was to shoot down John Reid's Red Brother, but that Injun is smart, and feigned death to keep it feigned only. The tales are all true--true, I tell you."

The Leader ended this talk, for he was both weary and wary of it.

"Oh, to hear those tales of Koren, who has shaken off the hangman's noose, and was once run through his trunk as he was lynched. I credit none of this. Not a word, not a thought. Yet perhaps our gifted tracker can tell us if we stalk man or fallen archangel. Tell us, Scotsman. What do we hunt?"

That Highlander was quick to second that bold leader, for this was why he was told to speak.

"What do we hunt? There are men, difficult to kill. They have powers of endurance that dredge up old myths, and campfire's words, meant to draw a honey closer in your arms, the better to seek liberties. Yet I say unto you now that this Koren is just a man, however long his death takes to arrive at his door. This Cat has not nine lives, but merely one. Like all of us that breathe air, and seek strong mead, and long for friendly twisters that eat petticoats while we watch, he has but one life to live. It is my declaration and my every intention that he should find himself without that life. What say you, Bold Rangers?"

The leader nodded at the wall of steel that now formed behind him.

"I say that Macleod has spoken well and truly. Go forth, you Rangers. And as you go, know that Mercy is no part of this place."

That Koren knew he was pursued, and how could he not? Away from his desperate ranks, he spoke with no other about.

"Oh, the scum I ride with in these latter days. Once, I was a god, and I rode with gods. But if I now ride with scum, I like not the math it all implies. Where, then, is even a worthy foe? Where is my fate's other friend, the one Fate knows I would not see it dwell with?"

That Koren and That Highlander knew one another's place, as The Rangers lay in to do gruesome battle with those Comancheros.

Yet ere that battle was joined, The Highlander grew wary. More senses than one told him all was not apparent, and all was not known by sight.

"Ho, You Rangers. And Stay Back I Say. These Comancheros are more in number than they should seem."

Every Ranger knew their steadfast tracker to speak only when it was wise to, and they had known the Red Tribe he had called his family. Both had their respect. For among these Texans dwelled not a single fellow of hateful Kern.

"Macleod has said that we should keep back, you Rangers. Look for the one that isn't there. Jump at shadows, and let no man gainsay your courage for this. For he will be dead, and you alive."

As desperate men of all stripe readied now their long rifles, and readied their full barrels to be empty ones, out came a man of no known stripe, and he was a man as no other. He was that Koren, that fiend of fiends, and knower of no depths of depravity.

That Leader Of Rangers saw this brazen walk, and proclaimed loudly his every intent.

"Oh, You Koren! You are surely that ravager of all decency, and a laugher at justice. They say that you may not die, but I care not, and what is more, I care nothing. For if your life has no let, then cheerily shall I compel you to spend it away and away, your overlong life used to pay for the lives you have stolen. I am the Law's Man, in this place. Your crime is death, and I bid you surrender or I shall sorely test your belief that you are proof against bullets, knives, and pointed sticks. What say you, Outlaw Koren?"

That Koren was as a man who does not care for anything, and this was the truth, since Herod gave grim orders.

"And why should we leave such a place? Here there are places a man may fight hearty, strong mead to drain hearty, and comely shapely things to ride hearty. I think that this place is our place, and we will not leave it. Again, why should we do so?"

That Highlander thought he knew that Koren's full measure. But in truth were they as unlike as like.

"You Koren! You may choose to travel in your well-worn boots or in a sturdy pine and cedar box. It matters nothing to one such as I, and more, I would welcome the chance to end your travels here."

That Koren saw his men cut down by men who said they were the better of the dead ones, and he regretted naught save that he had not chosen his scum less rapidly.

"You are one of two called Highlander, though I wager not the sworn foe of ScarNeck RaspVoice, that giant of the steppes. It is said that you have traveled as widely as I, a learner in Asia, a defender in France, a gadfly in Congo. Now you have found South Texas. But I may not compliment you, smallish child. For all that travel means merely a wider path to your last good sleep."

Their swords locked, as swords do, and both knew the blessed fright of battle. That Highlander felt overwhelmed, that all his prowess was spent merely keeping his own head on his own neck. Yet it was that Mel Koren was surely impressed by the youngster, lasting as he did when so few ever had.

"I away to the barn, you Highlander. Will You Follow Me?"

"Aye, I Will Follow You, you Koren. There Is Not Ocean So Deep, Or Mountain So High That Can Keep Me From My Destiny, which is your neck."

That Koren had a toy, and he would play with it a time, ere breaking it for newer things. The angry boy sought out the calm man, or that is how Koren saw it, and was he incorrect? In a swift move made from hay and dust, that Koren rendered that Highlander without sword, aye, and then himself as well.

"I think that you are chaff that has diluted my wheat, Highlander. But with this loving scythe I reap you away, and everything old is yet new again."

But that blow never came, for those victorious Rangers landed bullets in that Koren his laughter could not undo. He fell, as men do, but was that Koren a man? For men, it is known, have bones and meat in their miserable graves. That Highlander found nothing at all in that Koren's.

"Praise to you Macleod. That beast, that Koren, is no more. For you have destroyed his escape. It is done, it is done, it is done."

That Highlander raised up a beer as flat as his own spirits.

"I toast then, those things that are well and truly done."

* * *

THE PRESENT

Koren would be truly destroyed this time, this that bold and brave Highlander swore.

Yet as he came at the fiend with raised sword, another blocked and caught his, and yet this was no ally to that Koren.

"Be wary, you fool! Are you a helper to that Koren?"

This notion mightily enraged Macleod, who gained venom of his own at the intrusion.

"No, I am not his helper, woman! And why would you ask me if I was? Why, you are Cassandra, whom I have known! What business has one so gentle with one so frightful?"

"Move away, Macleod, you Highlander! I would have his head, and you may not stop me from seeking it."

That Koren laughed now as he had not in untold ages.

"Oh, the muddle heroes find among each other. This is why I win, why I always win. Your ways are murky. Mine are marked in reddest blood. Farewell, Quarrelsome Girl. Fare Poorly, You Highlander. For neither your vision nor your wits are quick enough to watch me go. As I go now."

When he was done and done, that Highlander turned to his known but unknown friend, seeking relief from burdensome questions.

"Again I ask, what has Koren to do with Cassandra?"

Her eyes grew distant, and pained as well.

"When you speak of that one, speak not of Koren, for it was not his name very long. When you speak of our foe, speak then only of Kronos, and know that we speak of the leader of those as were called The Four Horsemen."

"But surely such men as those are dust, aye, and less than dust."

"No, Highlander. The dust pile is as one-quarter unmade. As is my soul, til Kronos is done with. Sit, you Highlander. Learn of why I may have no peace while Kronos yet lives. It is a sorry tale."

* * *

Ascending to that Highlander's lofty place, the woman Cassandra knew great rage and this put that Duncan well off his mark.

"We two nearly gained heads this day, and this was untoward, for those heads were our own. I do not like to offer my friends such ill treatment."

The woman who had been his first glimpse of women made to silence his chatter.

"You Highlander, once a boy in my arms, gazing as a boy would upon my charms. Know that my sword very nearly found that fiend's thick neck, and yet like the Old Serpent he serves, he slithered away. And this shall be the last time he does this, mark me well."

But against that Duncan shrill Cassandra found no exit, only arms that offered comfort that could never be comfort.

"Gamble and lose, my lady. You are sore tired, and that Koren shall take your head, have no doubt at all. He is not so much dangerous, as he is a form of danger itself."

"Oh, young one, that knows him only as Koren, when I the beast's true name, and that name was Kronos. He was one of The Four Horsemen, and he rode with The Four Horsemen, and he led those Four Horsemen."

To disbelieve that creature one holds dear is a grave discomfort, yet Macleod was bid to speak thus once again.

"These Horsemen are creatures of the End Days, yet you would place them near the start."

"I know not of the end of this world, Macleod. I know well and horridly well of the end of mine, and it was swift, and it was harsh, and no paradise awaited my soul, though I was just. Like gods they rode, and merrily did they bring low all that was light and joy as they went their way."

* * *

THE BRONZE AGE

A small man knew he was a small man, and he gathered small things to him, and in this he was happy. But the truth of his birth and living was all undone and this small man was no more. Hooves of thunder alone pushed him to the hands of death.

But this small man was known in his small place, and the people who dwelt there were happy. They had a healer, and not merely a healer, but a healer in waiting.

Be not too happy, men say, else earn the wrath of gods, such as came around then.

Yet it is the lot of men, to be so happy, when not shown a reason to be sad. Yet such cause would they learn, and wish well that they had not.

"Cassandra, who is my learner. This arm I set will one day be your charge. The toes I prune back will be your toes. The babies born will see your face, and not mine, ere they first feed. Then, they shall surely say that Cassandra has always been our healer, and who was this Hijad?"

But love makes liars of us all, it is known, and once-foundling Cassandra proved this so.

"I think that you are a constant, like the stars above us, Hijad. I shall not ever be called healer, and you shall always be known thus."

"Then my learner has not learned a great truth at my feet. A Healer Am I, Not A God!"

As they bantered, that learner and that learned, that small man was cut down and made no man at all. Masked they were, and wild as the west wind of sands, when the storms of the late year come early. So it was that all bantering stopped, and that learned began to shout.

"No--and again I tell you no! Get gone from this small place, and know well that there is nothing here for such as you!"

Wearing a mask so fierce in aspect that no drawing or words could make anything of it but a parody, a sword that was a treasure in a world without treasures was drawn out.

"You Mounted Gods! Strike the mortal goats below us through from beard to tail! Now Charge You, I Say."

That learner, who was barren but would be her own posterity, looked on quite helpless, and this for her would know no surcrease.

"Who are these fiends, you teacher? What manner of beast rides on other beasts, and treats men as though they were mere beasts?"

"O, You Learner. These things are Horsemen, and we are all done, away and away. Pray you go from this place, knowing well that you are made of better stuff than those you have known."

As was said, the mask was all darkness and no light, and yet this was merely the absence of light. True, soul-suckling darkness lay in the face underneath the mask, and the face was the face not of a man, but of Pestilence, Once Champion Of That Horrid Scourge Of Babylon, whose names are Legion. Yet in this eon's ride, though men said it was a demon's ride, Pestilence held no other god before Pestilence.

"You old man. Do you know the hooves that tread your dirt? Do you know the lungs that breathe your putrid air? Do you know who it is that places you early in that place where all of your kind go lastly?"

Hajid was as a man emboldened. For he saw the figure in white approach, as his learner could not. He knew full well that figure in white, as must we all.

"Go from here, I say again. Go from here, for our stores are meager, our people thin, and our things fewer than few."

That Pestilence was greatly and mightily mispleased by this answer, and this he showed.

"You say that you have nothing for us? I say that you are a liar. My brother War finds precious skulls twixt his beefy fingers. My brother Famine finds your whelps, all tender and makes of them his morsels. My brother Death has found his unfathomable treasures, for surely he is a cipher, even to me. And what has Pestilence found? Why, I have found your breath, which I take now from you!"

That learner moved to save the learned from the sting of the blade, and in fact she died for him that day. But as she left life for the first time, the cold figure in white knew his victory. For he was Death, the eldest sibling. Hijad, the learned, was no more, and the small village now truly had nothing at all, even for the buzzards. But he spoke truly, for his learner would endure.

Present Day

She walked, in sunshine and in shadow, and That Highlander wished well to walk with her in both those places.

"Those Horsemen took from us our very last measure. What else there was turned to dust. My teacher, my place, my people and my world were ground to pepper for their broth. Mightily have I striven to put paid to that ledger. Til I but merely sighted that Kronos, I was a thing content. Now, I know well that this cancer grows inside me still. The pain does not ever vanish."

"You Cassandra. I say loudly yet with a whisper that you are greatly wrong. Let my touch turn back that cancer. Let my lips kiss away your pained and mournful sleep. Let me know you once more, and once more we shall go to that small place shared only by two, and that place is called by some to be heaven itself."

Yet his touch made the pain go only just to hide, for old pain and old evil are known to be that way. But still their love was sweet.

So it came that, when this love was done, The Highlander and The Lady Of The Voice sought out the one who kept his office true and just by keeping his oath not at all. For the keeper of Dawson's Tavern was a Watcher over those that did not die and yet died constantly. Yet would that Watcher yield up that Koren, that Kronos? Would he yet e'en believe there was such a one?

"Surely, The Highlander takes me for a great and forgiving fool. Are these Horsemen you invoke those four who ride in the words of parsons, priests, and proselytizers?"

"I speak no jest, you Watcher. These are neither creatures of The Last nor mere riders of steeds. They are Immortals, such as you have leave to know of."

Yet still that Watcher was incredulous, and thought sure a prank was afoot.

"I still say that they are creatures of the racing track. Why, I think that I shall make book on their prowess, adding well to my purse with theirs, as they earn it. But where, then, to lay my wager down? Shall I breathe in, and take odds on catching Pestilence? Shall I be a hungry bettor, and buy my meals won on Famine? Shall I boldly strike at the spread, and declare myself for War?"

Cassandra, it was known, cared nothing for such sport, and so called it done with.

"Perhaps, you should make book on the one that always comes at last, yet always does win. That one is Death, and after his race is through, your winnings are all his, I think."

That Watcher, so acid of tongue, found instead the sobriety of his visitors, though had he his druthers, this whole matter would have been kept only a jest.

"Then no jest is meant by your awful words. I ask again, if you speak of that you know, and not that you only think upon."

"Hear me well, Joseph. The threat posed by that Koren, who is truly called Kronos, is as deadly as our earnest, and greatly harsh."

That Watcher began his search, but sought to put the Lady off, by means genteel and reasoned.

"Cassandra, these men you have me look upon. They were not unique things, not uncommon at all. Such as they rode the world in times that e'en Immortals scarce recall.  
I fear greatly that you have made these fiends larger still in your memories. All but the fiercest advocates of belief most strongly concur that the Gospel Of John speaks of doom as it seems, not doom that will be known, as thought in those Dark Ages after Arthur yet before Charl Le Magne."

"Your words are measured, you Watcher. But they yet fail to know what I do. For it was no mere seeming that drove swords through my small place, in that Age Of Bronze."

That Watcher was as a man vexed.

"You say that you were in that place, and knew such fiends, and I have not cause or want to gainsay you. Yet, what would you have me do? If such men existed, and lived as you Immortals live, surely they have fallen away or been remade so greatly, that it is all the same."

Lady Cassandra offered up her want, and made it quite plain, to Watcher as to Highlander.

"You need only find Pestilence, whose true name is Kronos Of Ur. Look for destroying that has no cause, and by this you shall surely know him."

"And Watcher? His name of late has been Melvin Koren, who is known to they who watched over me, a century agone."

Watcher Dawson took on a pained knowledge, and a look that bespoke pained knowledge.

"I shall endeavor, and I shall strive. But know you well that this is a thirteenth labor fit for Heracles. For of all of you, only that Koren has no Watcher who can bear gazing into his endless abyss."

--------------------------------------

Now, the ways of The Oldest are nigh unfathomable, and his thoughts wholly unknowable by such as we. Yet it could be said, and it shall, that he was at once a man without worries, and that this condition would endure not long at all.

As home he made toward, the aspect of another creased his brains. The Oldest knew it well, and he knew it better than any alive. But yet he could not know the name and the face, til they were seen, and it is known that then it is too late for hasty flight.

"Is it you, Macleod? Hail And Well Met, Highlander!"

But no son of tartan, kilt and caber came at him with hand extended. No, this hand bore frenzied dagger, and this dagger's wielder knew not of friendship, as his bodkin found deep purchase within the chest of he who was The Oldest.

"Hail And Well Met, Brother!"

The Oldest knew that smile, and the eye that continued. He knew that the thing which he had feared most had at last come to pass. For Pestilence had found Death once more.

"Oh, is it Kronos, my brother, who greets me so very poorly?"

"It is I. Oh, Methos, for surely an emty place in me is now filled. Though, I fear, it is filled up with your own life's blood. Ah, it is well and meet that we two pass again, for sorely have I missed you."

And the dead thing that was The Oldest was carried all away, and soon, the dead thing became The Oldest once again. In a place where energy was made, The Oldest saw truest wanton power once again made flesh before his waking eyes.

"Good morrow. Is The Oldest a fit thing, hale and hearty? Pray tell me."

The Oldest yet felt blood taken as meal and air.

"I think that my poor heart travels not with me, but in the land of cable cars, landquakes, and Wharfs."

The art of phrasing is ever a chore. But Pestilence was always and truly infectious.

"I knew not you had such a core, poor or strong, hot or cold. Know you pain of it?"

"Need you ask, when it has met a dagger?"

The Oldest found that gaining purchase for his feet upon the ground was no small chore, for that Kronos had good use for him when he was not able to move any at all.

"I find that I must needs ask. You, who once took sweet pain as another brother, have forgotten that as well. Cold hard Death is now a downy thing, his marrow all replaced by cotton candy."

The Oldest was having none of this talk, and his refutation at least was made quite plain.

"When I was a boy, I did as a boy. Now, I am a man, a grown man, and I think now that I am the only one present."

The Master Of The Night paced about, in need of saying far more than hearing. A hand he extended, and The Oldest was raised up beside him.

"When I looked about, I saw you not at all, and vouched safe that there was no Methos to look about to. So I looked no longer. Then, as two fellows drank well of ale in a tavern, who should they speak upon but the Oldest Of Us All? You left no footsteps, as you walked with Manger and Child. Your bargain with The One made you forget that you may be seen, aye, and known to others."

"I am made well, you Kronos. But I am not made of purest mastery. That is not known."

"Ahh, but purest mastery has been yours, and this shames me to have ever thought you undone. You endure, and you abide, and it is what you do, and it is what you know, and it is who you once were. What you are no more."

"My living head, then? Is it forefeit?"

That Kronos was given to a gleeful nod.

"Could I do otherwise, and yet be Kronos? But you may turn back my sword, and easily at that. Would you know more?"

"I would. I would know all, were it given me."

"Good then, you Oldest. For the only path to turn back my strong sword from its certain way to your neck is to place your own sword along with it."

The Oldest did that which the Oldest does.

"With such a bargain, I can merely say, Hail And Well Met--Brother."

Yet truly, what had that Kronos won? Had he cornered the best survivor, only to see him survive yet again? In The Highlander's place, he came, that Oldest, and what was he seeking? Escape or victory, and what then did either word mean, to a man who has outlived languages?

"You Highlander, for I am glad that you are well and whole. Grave, dire business is afoot, and it is about, and it must be known presently."

"I know of such concerns, you Oldest. Mine concerns a fiend unparalleled, and he is called for Kronos."

"Kronos? Kronos, you say? For who is this Kronos? Nay, let me be the sayer, rather than the speaker of mere queries."

Yet life is defined by its odd points, and as The Lady Cassandra came to sup with her champion, all calm was lost, and lost quickly.

"Away, Highlander. You stand with the greatest of all dark fiends."

"Milady, know you The Oldest, who stands here with me?"

Her pretty eyes all on fire, she cried out her challenge.

"Draw your sword, that I may provide the just battle you never could, coward!"

The Oldest grew pale, and stiff, yet feigned the very greatest fluidity.

"Oh, you Highlander. Is it so that The Lady Raven should be green with envy? Come, let me know of your companion, who I have not ever seen at all."

"I, Cassandra, know you well, you ancient destroyer of life and love. Again I say to you, unsheathe and know battle!"

"But Milady, I am The Oldest. I have not ever known you, til our eyes locked in this place. Perhaps you have seen another's face where mine is. For it is said that my face is well that sort."

The Highlander called a breakfront to the gathering chaos, yet he was as nothing before it.

"You who are my friends! Get back from each other, I say! Away with your swords, when I bid you speak."

"But Highlander, as surely as I am The Oldest Of All, my oath that this woman and I are all separate, as it has ever been."

The Lady thundered at this art, as well she might.

"Think your stain so easily taken from me, O Methos? For your aspect was branded into me, from chin to behind. I know it well, and better than well."

* * *

THE BRONZE AGE

She saw, that Lady Of The Voice, as clear as she saw the day just prior, as the fierce Mounted Rider, all in white, absent all light, put her bodily to the dirt, and showed her that though she had been Cassandra, now she was nothing at all, and e'en less than that.

"Look not so thrown off, nor should you allow wild frenzy to crease your forehead. For your breed are as stubborn weeds, with roots deep and untouchable, endlessly sustained by the merest drop of water."

And in his deep eyes, there was only void. His hair was long, but not so dark as his soul. Half his face was blue, and this blue was the blue not of sky, but of despair. His voice, which drew away life with its breath, carried nothing of the heart of the man who was the first killer, the son of the first people, and the first Champion against the Wicked He, whose names are ever Legion. For this Methos remembered no more of that  
life than a swaddling babe remembers of the womb. Though he went to raise that woman up by hand, it was by hand that she was struck and batted away, as his own dagger nearly found purchase within his cold breast.

"You woman! For am I Death itself, and if you are nearly proof against most deaths, then I am proof against all deaths, aye, and all proofs as well. You may not slay a god, and you may not wound a god, and you may not even scratch at a god, unless you are prepared for an eternal battle that you must always lose."

"You fiend! You savager! My Teacher, and the people who were our sacred charges. Where are they kept by you, and how may I regain them?"

Now, all pleasant airs, that Death had merely to point his fingers, as though a fellow traveler had but asked to know of ready water in the desert.

"Do you espy those skulls? You slept not long at all, yet brother Famine knows his craft well. Why, we slew your villagers, and we slew their healer, and we slew their healer's learner, who lies before me now."

Great was her horror, and greater was her terror, and so great were both, she knew not fear as we might, for all seemed dust, and who is frighted then?

"Those are not my people, and you are a liar, for their healer's learner is still among the quick, though she is not as quick as your lying tongue, I think."

"Gods may lie, as they wish it. But look well upon the wound you took? You should be no more, and yet it is both wound and scar that are done with."

And when she well saw that this was so, he kept on, as much at her as to her. Rough hewn hands then took what he was sure his property, and yet what she who had been Cassandra still would try to keep her own, despite every last depredation. Yet her hand could not pull his away, not any at all.

"Heard you not my words, which are all your law? Your death is turned back, only by me, and your life is done but for my great pleasure. A blow struck, or a defiance shown when it should not ever be, gives me no pleasure, and decreases your life, which goes on and on to serve only me, and you shall have no other, before or after. Know that I am also called Methos, and that this is always the name of your only master."

Yet it is known that earth-bound gods, false or true, are ever petty, thieving things, and for War and Famine, such fallings out would give bright laughter to Mars and Vulcan, those feuding Olympian sons. For never were two brothers more hateful to one another. Death knew this well, and quickly threw off his new toy.

"Oh, it is a cloak, this day! If given bird droppings, why then I think that they would fight over that."

"You Famine! Give Me My Cloak, which is mine alone!"

"You War! I think that I shall better to put my steel through your thick neck, and end your tongue's misery, to be attached to so dull a wit, aye, and so half a wit!"

"You Famine, for I am Death, and tell you to stand away, and down from tasking War."

"You Death? Why would I stand any place but where I stand now, set to bone and skewer this walking pig that you say is my brother!"

Death's answer was Death's answer, well known to many dead and few living, and Famine might soon not be among those.

"Why, because I have said that this should be so, and will end Famine's hunger for all time, if I am mispleased. For in my counting, three need not be four, and you need not be that fourth."

Such a conflict of mounted gods was not unseeable by bold Pestilence, who queried Death of it, and not joyously at all did he do this.

"You Death? Is there strife known here?"

"Pestilence has no worries, and we know no such strife as that which you speak upon."

But Pestilence knew better, and ripped wide the worrisome cloak, until then it was two cloaks.

"The Mounted Gods hold sway over the whole world, and we hold it all as one would. All that is one's is also held by the others. In this, there is no let, and I am quite unrelenting."

Mortals, it is known, hope to escape the gaze of the gods, and whatever that woman was, she sought this also. But she gained not the pale steed that was Death's, nor did she regain herself. All she truly gained was another passage into Oblivion's waiting maw.

"You woman! My dagger I draw again, and with it deflate your pretty chest! Did you like your death so well? Did you love its pain and loss, as you became no more? Why, then, I shall give it yet again and again,  
and so it shall go on, straight through, until you break, and mark me, break you shall."

She did not doubt Death's own truth, nor would he give her cause to do so.

PRESENT DAY

That fiend who was and was not sought the shelter of both fiercest friend and fibbish folly.

"You Highlander! Your woman speaks surely and purely from the mouth of madness. Keep her back from me, for about her, I fear I am not safe."

But that lady knew well her violator and enslaver, and her sword she drew, anxious for it to taste of neck and spine, blood and brains, nerves and sinew.

"Run not behind his kilt, you Death! This matter is all ours, and it is no concern to any other, nor should you seek that it should be thus."

The Highlander chose as he chose, and did what it was he always did, and letting any death prevail when aught was clear was not his wont. Was it wrong of him to do so? Could he do else, and yet be Duncan Macleod?

"Stand down, you Cassandra. Get gone, you Methos. Away--away with you, I say. And now he is gone, Lady, and you will make known to me all that I do not know, and this is a great deal indeed."

"Oh, you boy! Do you stare as dumbly at his evil as you once did my charms? For you were a boy, then, and that is what boys do. But a man does not know evil? But a man interferes in proclaimed battle, among the rules known to us all? For such is not what men do, unless it is that they are yet boys!"

"That one is my friend. That one knew you not at all, and loudly proclaimed such, and great was his puzzling at your shouted words. And I may vouch safe to one and all, that he is called my ally, and he is called my friend."

Her fury was plain, and her fury she made even better known, as though it were not plain at all.

"Your friend is a liar, and he is the lie himself, and if I seek to cut out this living lie, do not block my blade, lest it be with your own neck. Him who you call your friend rode, it is known to me, with that Koren, who I called prior for Kronos. As one they rode, and as one they took more than lives, and cut beyond maidenheads, and took what they would take, when they would take it. They did as they would, and they did not stoop to conquer, but to every vileness. For him you call ally was Death. For him you call friend was one of those Horsemen, whom I knew well."

* * *

Now, a Watcher can know what we do not. Yet can he know what no one does, and what he will not take as credible? Of course he may not, for such is given to no one.

"Feh, I say, and Bah besides! Our Methos does not hunt, and is apt as not to let all grudges pass into dust. Wronged Cassandra is quite the madskull, or perhaps she schemes as does a lady we hold dear, but with less honesty. I think that you know her not so well."

"And the Oldest? Do I then, know him so well, when he is so very ancient? Do I know your life in Asian wars? Were you put out from your village?"

"The Highlander is my charge, and greatly has this pleased me. I say that her tale, that our Methos stood laughing over fallen innocents, is without credit. Or would you then lend it such credit?"

The Highlander was sorely vexed, for no answer was to be found, in that place he so often sought them.

"You know that I would not. He is not such a man as she has said. But in times past, before either of us knew breath, and even Ramirez was a pup, what do we know? I fear we know little."

"Then I can provide neither scrolls nor succor, for The Highlander ignores his heart in this. The Watchers, it is known, know of The Oldest almost not at all. The one who knows him best sits before me, doubting him."

"I thank you well, Watcher. For I must needs pose all questions and puzzles and idle talk only to Methos The Oldest, and pray he answers me as well and truly."

* * *

Whate'er his intent, that Oldest sought that Pestilence, as he had been bid. The place was all a ruin, and it was known that such was the preference of Kronos.

"Well met again, Brother. I knew that you would surely return, for you are greatly fond of your pulse, and of your head, and know well that these would be mine, near and not far."

Keeping himself well, The Oldest smiled at the one he had sworn he knew not at all, and this smile seemed well enough, for seeming was all the art of Methos, even then to Kronos.

"For you have called me wise, and you have called me sage, and you have named me your brother, and you are wise also, so this is a good thing. Think you that flight was about me? For it was not, but I find it quite fit and meet that you require my constant company."

That Pestilence took to turn away from the lost one who was now found, and was this a foolish thing, or did Pestilence know Death too well? Yet did any truly know Death?

"Think you that I would wish to embrace the protector of Yeshua, who undid my world, and you who proclaimed our brotherhood done with, though I searched well the entire world over two score? Speak not of my desires, so much as my wants. I want the world I knew. I say that you may aid me in restoring it. I have ridden to such a goal with dregs and worms, and ants and rats. Now, again I choose to ride with the gods, and together we shall do what Morningstar could not, shattering firmament and stars both."

Behind him, the Oldest knew his sword, and he knew his grip well, and talked honey to perchance know victory.

"Pestilence has ever shown boldness. You Kronos! You showed grave boldness this day, for you did not make certain my return. Perhaps your boldness is too far great?"

A swing does not cut, in and of itself, and a blow that does not connect is not a blow, and a sword that is knocked away has not so much value as a good dagger at the throat. Kronos saw this well, and Methos was quick to see this as well, though it was to his chagrin.

"The Oldest speaks of risks that should not be taken, and boldness that ought not be. Yet through such boldness I have come to learn that your true measure is as I knew it, in times now dust. I like well what I have found, for yet still you are Death."

"No, I am not Death, nor you Pestilence! That world and that life are gone, and that one you knew is gone with it. I love blind slaughter not well at all, nor do I seek it any at all."

If The Oldest was the sharpest at words, that Kronos was not dull, and still came at his goal as he ever had.

"I think that I might know The Oldest so well, I can scarce credit such talk from him. Oh, there was slaughter, as there will yet be again, mark me well. But it was means, and not mere meanness. I speak not of the kills that any fool may make, if his meal is cold, or his conveyance is scratched, or his gods offended. When you hear my words, hear me talk of freedom. Hear me talk of power. The power that said to all the tiny things that surely their petty gods are slain, and that we four were all the forces of creation, and that they were found wanting in our sights. My words are truth, and you may not gainsay them. This life you have now is an airless void. Join me again, and breathe air, and feel air, cold and crisp, hot and burning, as you knew it when we were gods!"

That Kronos saw the war-tides build within the blood of The Oldest, and joyed greatly at this. Yet was his vision still clouded by wishes, making his demon's ride a beggars' one instead?

"That quarrelsome girl, whose head you left attached without good or just cause, is about. I would destroy her. I would do this solely to guard my brother's neck."

That Oldest nodded, and why would he not, when that Kronos had spoken of his head and his neck, both precious to him.

"My brother is so very generous to me, when in truth I deserve it not at all. I would avoid the onus of my debt to you, should you snip away Cassandra, that oh-so quarrelsome girl."

"Oh, but The Oldest, who is perhaps once again Death, need owe no debt to poor humble Pestilence. A like act clears all ledgers, and says that no debt is owed, that no purse is owned, that no one is burdened. For as I complete your undone task, so you for me. You must best, and more, you must undo The Highlander, and by that I mean the one that you have known."

That Methos, who was also once Death, and had long been the Oldest, looked out in wonder at this talk, and that Kronos had known that this would be so. But what was art, and what was true? The Oldest knew sure, and Kronos knew sure that he must needs keep watch over the Oldest.

"What has The Highlander, who is my boon companion and ally, to do with Bold Pestilence? Let him be, for he is often his own worst foe, and nothing to such as us."

Then, that Kronos rose up in a great and mighty rage, and this was largely his true face.

"That such as he is any manner of companion or ally to such as you drives me mad to find whether you are proof against his weak, foolish bleatings, such as I have heard. More, let me speak of an entombing, and for that you shall never know a surcrease of debt to me! I will gain your oath, and that oath shall see that after it is all done, that there is only one called Macleod, to be dealt with at our leisure."

That Kronos opened his palm by blade, and bid The Oldest follow him in this, and that he did. Two hands became one, and blood knew blood again.

"Then I shall slay The Highlander, and men and all his women will come to say that there never was a Duncan Macleod, and this I swear with no let and no art. Know you that he shall die, and it is that he shall die all by my hand, and by my sword."

* * *

When the past returns, it does not come in drops, in drips, or drabs, or even in bursts. No, the past comes as a cascading deluge, and all the world is washed away as it does. But it is not washed clean, this we know. Could The Oldest know less, as he gathered up all his things, and was seen by that Highlander, whom he had sworn to slay?

"Hail and Well Met, Oldest. Is it a journey you undertake? And does this journey seek to move you away from questions asked, and questions answered? Come then, and make me know of Cassandra's words, and whether they are fair or foul."

"Get gone from me, you Highlander. Speak not to me of words or questions. Get you gone from me, as I now from you."

"No, I say, and no again. I am a stop to all your egress, til you tell me true, and I seek to know if you are the one that Cassandra vouched safe was once a beast. Were you then that one, that slaughterer?"

The Oldest turned away from The Highlander, who would not be put off by simple words, no matter their art.

"Where was Macleod when Babel's Tower was an idea, and not yet a story? Where was Macleod when kings drank from skulls, and membered themselves inside the children of their foemen, and they were greatly acclaimed for these acts? I say that Macleod was nowhere then, and cannot know what he cannot know, and I have said that he can not know these things! Now walk from here, and ask no more that I should unmake your ignorance."

Now, that Highlander was not quick to say that a man was his friend, even back to his own kinsman, both the one who was his teacher, and the one who he first slew, over a woman he could not have. But this he had done for The Oldest, and in him he had thought that The Priest, slain coldly by The Hunter, had found a new birth. That this might not be so threatened to stop a heart that knew no stoppage.

"Fair or foul, Methos! Speak well of that lady's words, and speak well where you stand. That shall call a finish to this. That, and that alone shall say it is done."

The Oldest grabbed bodily that one who had been his friend, and was now his sworn foe to hear it, and gave The Highlander what he did not want, despite his proclamation.

"I shall speak, then, but that will not say it is done, for I was that reaver, that slayer, and aye, far more than that. No mere barbarian of Howard's crafting was I, for in that time the world knew no jeweled kingdoms. No, think less of Howard, and more of Lovecraft, for that was my nature before all the peoples of the world. Invocations were spoken against me, and prayers spoken to me, and not a one meant aught to me, and your Lady and all her villagers meant less than that. Did I slay those fifty in the wanderers' village? Aye, I swear that I did. Did I slay those thousand as Cannanites sought the desert? Aye, I swear that I did. Did I slay then, ten thousand? I will not swear that I did, for I would not have taken note of numbers, when those lives were mine to take---and I took those joyfully, and gleefully, and never have I lived so well as when I lived, rode and was called for Mounted Death!"

That Highlander regained his own person, but not again his faith in one so hidden and unknown.

"You have told me to get from here, and this I do, and I joy to be away from you. Do not seek me, and do not count me when you count your allies, nor when you count your friends. I say, in this matter of you and I : It is done, It is done, It is done. Let hosannas be sung that I have seen the light, though it stings both my eyes, and its stench affronts my every other sense."

Yet no hosannas were heard, and neither one was gleeful at this happenstance. The Highlander knew, as did The Oldest, that such a sundering could not be mere, and must soon be followed by some manner of war, and in this belief they were not to be proven wrong, though this in fact might be the wish of some. And as they turned well away, more than walls rose up to mark this.

* * *

Grief and comprehension are not always friends, and they were no allies of the Highlander and his Watcher, lost in what had been told of The Oldest. Were they themselves lost as well? Was all lost, ne'er to be redeemed?

"Speak not to me of apologies for The Oldest, you Watcher. I will not have it, and more say that no apology can be made for what we have come to know."

"The Highlander speaks of apologies. I do not speak of apologies, but only to know. For such is owed by us to any, and twice again to The Oldest, who has been our steadfast ally."

That Highlander could not ignore his heart's wounds, and he could not unmake his sense of whole-cloth betrayal.

"There is no great knowledge, here. Why, I say that there is no more to be learned from this than there was a village left, when The Horsemen were all done with it."

"I speak as The Oldest, you Highlander. We were not there, and we could not know, and our ways were not his. But a Watcher knows well of your blade, and when it was raised in anger, deep and red. Know now of mine, and of that war in Asia, of which so many have heard, but so few can taste as I do. For I was a killer, as were my brothers, as is my charge who sits and preens before me, as is his lady, and that boy, who I am mightily pleased is nowhere about us. If I could walk as you do, it would be said that I walk with killers, as a killer myself, and that the blood of innocents mixed in my time with the blood of the guilty. This then is truth beyond words."

"Know this, Watcher. My sins are my own, and I do not say they were not mine, or that they were not sins. Your sins are twixt you and The One. But when he spoke so lustily, the Oldest spoke of a fire that burned, and it took half the world. When he told so gleefully, the Oldest spoke of women that were used, and brutally were they used. When he confessed, with joy in his eyes, The Oldest spoke of so very many small children, slain for that most low of all causes, and that cause was no cause at all, save that he wielded such power. His pleasure at his craft marks him as always and forever among the greatest of all arch-fiends, and you may not say but that this is so."

But e'er The Watcher could offer up a way to gainsay The Highlander, a message came, and it was dire in its hearing, as it would be in its telling.

"Go now, you Highlander. At a ruin by the waters, that Koren, who is known as Kronos, dwells, plots, and ponders grim mischief. I would see him undone."

"The Watcher has my gratitude, and this is certain. But how may you know that Kronos, and where he dwells? For you have said that no Watcher will go where pass the feet of grim Kronos."

Dawson, that Watcher over Macleod The Highlander, looked as a man drained through to the last of all measures.

"I have said such, and know such to be true. But that Lady Of The Voice, The Accuser Of The Oldest, that Cassandra, is well watched, and she has gone to chop away that fiend."

"Then I will go from here, for whether fiend of yore or thug from here, that Kronos is too fierce a foe for one such as she, whom I also hold well and dear."

He went from that place, did The Highlander, fearing properly that butcher and butchered had then found each other yet again, and a pitched battle was called.

* * *

Alone that Kronos was, in that wretched ruin of a place, when he saw fit to prove well his fallibility, as he gained the sense of another, and thought wrongly.

"Quicker still, Brother Methos. Brought you me his head? Gained for me is his hair's tail? Oh, tell your poor Kronos at least that you have gained his sword, for it is the sturdy weapon of a sturdy, though greatly unwise, foeman. That Highlander is gone, and we shall not know his like again. Should I then weep, and in what wise should my tears flow?"

But this was not his brother, if brother he had, and this was yet in doubt, even to bold Kronos.

"Why, then, let your tears flow for yourself, and for your Methos, for he shall not ever best that Macleod, I think. Let those tears be wept in great sorrow, as you are made to dwell with every weak sinner from Noah's neighbor to that fiend of iron cross, nearly so evil as yourself. Oh, from Fertile Crescent of Fruit and Honey to Desert of Petrol and War, you are as constant as the fungus neath' our nails, and you serve even less worthy goals."

Was his aspect pained annoyance? Was it a hunter's delight? It matters little what face bold Kronos wore, for as he put on that face, his sword knew not sheath.

"Who is it that tasks me so? Oh, is it our dear quarrelsome girl, who has learned to stand upright? And has she come all this way to demand a whore's just fee? For I have not coin, save four pennies, two for your eyes, and two for The Highlander's. Yes, for it is our slave Cassandra, the most delirious girl the world ever knew. She is not about her old duties, which I shall place her to now. Perhaps you have keened from your fellow paid ladies a better means of pleasuring me? Oh, pray show me your tricks!"

That Cassandra knew his taunt, but kept back his sting, determined that she would not again be a slave to either fear or fiend. But old though her wounds were, she dealt with evil far older, and she had only winced and blinked at its depths, never truly gazed in, and only there is danger, and only there is knowledge.

"Oh, I want no such glamour, to undo so weak a foe as Kronos. Why, I think that my old enslaver is greatly wearied, and would know a long sleep. That sword is a burden and a bother to you, and I think well that you should place it aside, for the harm it does your poor hands."

A mighter weapon than the Lady's voice had rare been seen, for it was the most common thing to hear one speak. But a voice must be heard, and it must be heard by one who would hear it. As for her cloak in a time now gone, so for Cassandra's own sword, and she was stunned to see this.

"I would know your pleasure, ere we are forever done. But that new trick mispleases me, for it may not allay my wild energies, but only touches my rage, for being so very feeble. You Cow! For I am proof against your petty works, and aye, your grander works, as well. Your life continued at the whim of The Oldest, and we may see that he is not here. I want only your pleasure, and your pretty pretty head, and I mean to have both in rapidity, and with no stop or let, save that I let your blood."

Though his face was taken with scalding, and though her feet were fleet and true, it seemed sure that predator and prey would soon be ill-met again. Yet when both took in the sense of another, the fleet grew fleeter, until that Cassandra was taken up by The Oldest, who had come again, and cast that Cassandra well away. He did not answer full her bloody oath, knowing it well enough  
from a thousand times before, and from his dreams as well. Yet though she was well away, still did that old Pestilence hunt.

"Come out, you girl! Won't you come out and play here, in my ruined garden? I think it a fit and meet place for you to fall down. But if our quarrelsome girl does not like to play with me, let me help her, for great is my kindness. Our play's time will be short, it shall be all of one game, and it shall be done with, away and away. Will you not play this one short game?"

"That Lady is not here, you Kronos. But this Highlander likes well a fast game, for long I have wanted your play in such a game, and as my prize I will claim your living head!"

Though that Kronos was given to laughter, hard was he pressed to gain any advantage, and this was vexing to him, for that Macleod was a merest child in his eyes. But in harsh truth, neither gifted warrior could gain a great lot in this. Then even less could be gained, for a great ring of fire, and this rivalled the flames that raged in their grim hearts, rose up, and this flame was cast from the fingers of The Oldest.

"And when you two are pulled all away, only then will cooling mist move out, that to keep my ally from the ashpile."

Yet who was that ally? Enemies together looked over at The Oldest, and great cold chills belied the flames all around. Could blindly good Macleod ever know? Could blindly fierce Kronos know any better? Of course they could not, and neither foeman liked well of such uncertainty. Bold Kronos kept up his outward airs, for this was part of his bones, and made up half of all his heart and soul.

"You are a child, you Highlander, and your patience is naught, and makes you well discernible by such as I, who have slain children as the tread of my boots. My wisdom is old, and my patience says that I may walk from you, and find you again, and this shall be all at my leisure. Your fall is mine, when I so choose."

To The Highlander, the sight of The Oldest was as yet another break to a heart that needed no more. For it was not at the side of Macleod that Methos left. Yet joy was to be found. At his place, the heartsick one found well that Lady he thought no more.

"My sweet and beauteous Cassandra! I thought you undone surely, as I took the fight to vile Kronos, there to take his head."

"Oh tell me, you Champion! Does that wicked head still speak its wickedness, or does he now plead before the one who is more evil than e'en he may feign?"

"No, you pretty lady. He yet plots, and yet he ponders, the better to strike out at us and lash out at innocents, as he seeks us."

"Oh, I am undone! For while we yet live, and this is a great good thing, so do those two devils gain further ground, and seek to rush the spires of the highest heaven. And this will persist while they endure, and you may not succor or gainsay me in this truth."

His arms found her, and again, they were all a comfort to her, and she to him, for great was their affection, and this was grievously desired, in days so dark, and darker yet to come.

"Then away, and away, we two shall find those two, and persist til Pestilence meets Panacea, and Death, that false friend and last enemy, are all undone, and their works driven to legendry with no more base."

Yet was that Oldest false friend or false foe, and could this query be asked as well by bold Kronos? For this, it is known, is surely what he chose. But was it all his choice? For though soon set to chew steel, The Oldest was the eye of the storm that swirled all around him.

"My brother wrongs me, and sees without looking. The battle you undertook was rash, and had no surety for bold Kronos. Macleod may be destroyed, and destroyed he will surely be. But he is a fool, like as not to hand his head to you as take yours. Let The Highlander be The Highlander, and then surety is had. For he has ever been the best proof againt his own Immortal life."

"The Oldest understands his Kronos not at all, for I like and trust The Highlander well, and would call him ally and helpmeet. And why would I do this? Because in that wise, at the least, I could know sure he would betray and slay me, at first opening. And this is a surety I may not have with Methos. I fear I must pull from The Oldest the final true surety, and take his head."

Widely is it said, and wildly is it said, and beaten unto death is this sorely lacking phrase, yet still it must be said, in the talk of taking the head of The Oldest, the man who was Death, and might yet be again.

"Many have tried, you Kronos, and all have failed. For contained in me are many prizes, and a prize that is to each one above The Prize that only The Last will take. To you I offer such a grand, grand prize. I ask this of bold Kronos : What is two, if two more are added, or if they are restored? What would Pestilence do? Would he let Death keep on, if Death yielded up to him War, aye, and Famine as well as war?"

That Kronos pulled back his blade, but not his mind's edge, for he knew The Oldest well.

"Do you say that which is my most fervent hope, and my prayer, if I offered prayers? Or is your tongue's quickness all of a means to keep yourself quick and well?"

"I tell you now that those stalwarts and destroyers, Silas and Caspian, are yet about, and I may do well to bring you to them, if I but continue keeping my head."

Ne'er had such joy seen witness, and not ever did a fiend truly grin a beamish boy's grin, until that moment. For in the words of The Oldest, that Kronos felt a world be reborn, never to be moved from again.

"That dreadful day, come round at last. That day of dread, as in the past. The sun will not shine anymore, and the moon no longer rise in the sky, but that we say when, where, and how oft. Those Mounted Gods will ride again, and they are truly called for The Four Horsemen Of The Apocalypse.  
These are the words of Bold Pestilence! These Are The Words Of Kronos, then as now, Master Of The Night!"

The Oldest was as a statue, and a statue shows no grief, nor joy, nor pleasure, nor loathing, and in this is a statue also like Death?

Would You Know More?

Apocalypsis  
Book Two  
by Rob Morris

You Listener. Know you well, that previously, when we spoke of the many tales of The Highlander, a friend was known again, and so it was for a fiend, and answers to elder riddles were found, and the Watcher queried as to many things. Venegance was sworn by many, but no head was had by any -for that was merely a first part, when heads are not as loose, and this is known. A time near past and a time long past were invoked, and that Highlander knew the company of a good woman of shadows and secrets. Aye, and The Oldest spoke much of how he is The Oldest, for that is what The Oldest does.

What say you? My tale is a poor one? Oh, you cry, it is a tale told to you near one hundred times before? Sit down, I say! For you know not this tale, and these Revelations are not what you have known, as well. Why, I vouchsafe that this telling will eclipse the tale of the two Highlanders and the giant. I vouchsafe that you will forget the schemes of that vile Hunter, kinsman to the Watcher. And the less said of that horrid singer, the better, for his treachery was not so fiendish as his baritone--and this was before he was injured, let it be said.

Remember you the four mounted gods? If not, then you soon shall, and like it not one wit. You have asked. Now, at last, you will know more. Should you have asked?

The Ukraine

And as they rode, those two once-gods felt by turns less godlike, as they went.

"I think that I am overmade as a cosmopolitan. Even Death knows aches, I fear. Our passage has sore worn upon me, and it has drained my vital energies."

"And mine, I should think. For two suns, we rode as pinioned gods, though why even the lowest of gods, and we are not that, should gladly suffer those pale sugared legumes is not in my ken. Now, we ride these poor things two suns more, and crook-back Richard would rather yield his kingdom up than ride such fragile fiends!"

"Ah, you Pestilence. For am I not your brother, whom you loved and hated so well, that wants, needs and desires drove you and your bodkin straight back into my bosom?"

"Then mark me well, Death-that-was. For I love nothing so well as to endure such pointless strife that gains me aught."

But perhaps as Pestilence was made to expect, Death knew calming words.

"I say thee nay, Bold Pestilence. He is about, and this is all his place. But your aspect sours my joy. What worth, then, does my brother place in my given word?"

"Why, brother, I assign to your word the same worth and value it has always had, when only my wits were about me. Yet I tremble, now, as surely as others trembled, when the nascent thunder of my six feet began their piecemeal journey to your realms, Methos. Since the victory of the Nazarene, and since his angel cast me past the Rhinelands, this day I have known, as I waked, as I slept, as I despaired, and as I rejoiced. As I joined in unfinished cosmic battle with that Giant of the Russian Steppes, and as I joined in comic battle with that simple army clerk of Iowan mien. And he had better breath than the Kurgan."

An odd turn of thought struck at that Methos, and this he shared with his Kronos.

"How I laugh now, Brother! Those men of hoops and leaps, led by the Air Jordan, are called the men of dreams and aspirations, and they walk with kings, rabbits and ducks. But we who have bloodied well the River Jordan are the dreams that they have all forgotten."

As both knew, these words had power, even over a wise one that knew much better than to be lead.

"And we are the dreams that they shall do well to remember, Methos, and we offer them no choice in these matters, as the four mounted gods are all once again. It shall be as it was, and as it is now, though without art or glamour. We shall be given our tribute, and we are long past due for that."

That Methos merely shrugged, and a grin creased him, and it was a grin that Kronos welcomed, even if he did not trust it at all.

"Kronos, did you not know that it is wrong to take what is offered you freely? The best is only found for those times when you take that which they will not yield, nor ever surrender, while they yet live. What worth is a king's crown if he removes it, and offers it on pillow? You know how it must be taken."

How far then may man or god be taken, if this is all their goal, that is, to be taken?

"Yes! For these are the words of my brother, and they are words I have longed to hear, and thought blinked out by the light over David's City. But Ho! Is that War itself I hear breaking cedars to splinters? And is it that Silas that I see wielding an axe, such as I carried with me to Iceland, given as a boon to Norsemen who thought me Thor?"

"Remember well how much time has passed, brother. That Silas was ne'er all that sharp, as well. We may be as dreams or less to him."

That Methos remained ever a cagey one, trapping that goal-ridden Pestilence in unasked questions, and answers freely proffered.

"Did Prometheus grow vague, recalling that he was as a Titan? Has Morningstar, despite his scars and burns, forgotten the Mountain from which he fell? War will know his own true aspect, and in this he has no more option than do we."

"Yet Prometheus caught and ate that old bird, and joyed after that he had blessed all with fire. That Lucifer chiefly keeps to his miserable places, it is known. Perhaps this being all Silas place, he will not wish to know more."

Was that Kronos truly lead? Or was he running, now, and did he care at all, except that the pendulum was back his way, at least in seeming?

"He will. Let the salt he tastes come not from his own brow, but from kilohectares of split heads and spilt blood. Let the brains he burdens fall out of once-living skulls. Let him warm himself not by a meager circle of stones, but by a globe aflame. I vouch safe that he will wish our company. Had I a soul, I would wager it gladly on such a game of pitch and toss."

Now, that giant, that Silas, was made as any other of his like, and his nerves were set afire, and his sinews turned to steel, and this was the steel of a sprung trap. That trap cast away that axe, but did that poor dull axe fear Pestilence and fear Death? If so, then this was a very wise axe, and it was smarter than most men. It passed between them, and sought not ball lightning, but wood that it found safe purchase in. But this axe would be forgot, as that Silas looked upon the two halted riders, and he would make them three again, and this joyed all but the joyless, which is to say Methos.

"Oh, are these my Brothers True, whole and not slain? Methos, the plotter? Kronos, the night's own master? Oh, tell me true, and whisper when you do  
for they'll swear you lied!"

That Kronos felt ecstasy at this viewing, and was made to shout.

"No, you Silas, for why would I whisper?! Methos, when we do not whisper, what thing should we tell them, those quaking masses yearning to breathe our  
word, and our law?!"

That Methos regained his air from that mountainous Silas' tender grip, and spoke what was in his heart, at that time, and this was believed by all but one.

"Tell Them The Horsemen Are Returned!"

Bucharest, Romania

All about the madhouse, men and women and children were given to cry out, and these lost ones could prove a grave peril, if only let loose among others. Yet as any wise man would know, the one who shrieked never in pain, yet always in joy, was the peril among perils. A very wise man sought his release, now, though to what release of his own none could yet say.

"You men seek that fiend, that Evan Caspari? Well, you may not have him. This boon is neither meet nor fit, and you will wait long to gain an unlikely goal to your strange quest."

That Methos spoke, for none would gainsay that words were all his art, when words were needed.

"We would away with him, aye, and away with all speed as we go. You will bring this about."

"No sir. Again I decry your impossible goal, which is both unlikely and strange."

That Kronos had once chosen twixt cowards that ran and clownish oafs that sought to bargain with the mounted gods. He decided well that he loved all cowards, for who wants to be dead? This was within his ken. Outside his ken and beneath all his contempt were the weighers of scales, and counters of coins and paper. Yet still he had that paper, and he gave up that paper, and he made use of that paper.

"Benjamin Franklin, flyer of kites, father of children, printer of books, and a truly humorous man of good wit. His homeland honors him with these smallish portraits I have kept well in this seal. By my quick count, I now present you, Keeper Of The Madhouse, with such portraits as make up two-hundred, and then fifty again. Pray tell me, you Keeper, does this make of our goal a likely one, and our quest less strange?"

The Keeper kept those portraits of that man of Bonhomme Richard, and his aspect shifted, that one last time.

"Oh, sirs! My every apology. For Doctor Franklin has always spoken so well, and this is known. Come, I shall release that poor soul, that Caspari, unto you all. But why would fine gentlemen of note as you are seek such a wretch? Know you well that he is not merely a stone killer but a flayer and eater of the flesh of humans, and some of those were kept in parts that were well chilled."

That Kronos heard a cry he knew well.

"Why, we shall make of him an honest man, and teach him an honest trade, such as he once knew. His contribution to society shall be notable and not easily forgotten."

Silas' largish grin had turned to grimace, and he tasked that keeper with a query.

"He is as we have always known him. Keeper, why was he not put down as one would a mad and rabid dog that foamed and ripped?"

"Oh, we are not barbarians now, sir, but civilized men, and bound by laws. Execution would not be meet or right, and hardly humane."

That Methos saw the dank dungeon where the worst ones were kept, and it was so vile, that a look merely flitted twixt he and that Kronos, and they vowed their fallen enemies would know a quick death, and not such a fetid place. No, they would see the sun and the stars, as their eyes last closed.

"Oh, we are lost, and we are damned, and we are done! That one of dread, Herald of Him Of Babel, Who Is In Turn Herald Of Three Of Skulls, has surely come around at last! That day of wrath, as in the past!"

As this madskull was led off to know stick and steel, the Keeper paid him almost no mind or concern.

"Pay no heed of that one, you fine gentlemen. He is as a stopped clock, stopped now for a score and half of a score."

That Kronos looked back once, and then full at the Keeper, and it was a gaze the corrupt jailor would not forget.

"But surely, you Keeper, you know that which is said of the accuracy of stopped clocks."

As the sense of another overtook him, that Methos looked about anew at the squalor, and was given to speak.

"Oh, you Keepers! Why, I think that you are nearly as humane as we ourselves have been known to allow. Perhaps even half again!"

If that Keeper sensed the ill intent of these words, the swiftness of the moment robbed him of all vain retorts. The Maddest saw the Fiercest, and he saw The Oldest, and this time, his howls were all words.

"YOU ARE MY BROTHERS!"

As for the sword of Pestilence through the chains of Famine, so for Caspian upon the throat of the Keeper, and this was not for long at all.

"Oh, aid me now, you fine gentlemen, else I am all undone!"

Yet that Kronos merely watched his artistic brother at work, after too long a season lain fallow and rotten.

"You seek aid, oh Keeper? Then ask aid of your last ally, Benjamin Franklin. Or should I keep that statesman's portrait? Should I save it for a rainy day? Yes, I think that I should. For you will not spend it, I think."

Was the Maddest now to turn on The Oldest? This surely seemed so, as he cried out, and pointed as he did at that Methos.

"You Death! Caspian begs you to stay your grim gait. For I seek living meal."

Once-Death saw the hardy bug that was known to shrug off all the poisons of man popped into a bottomless gullet of a yet skinny man, and he liked this sight not at all. That Kronos saw much wit in this, but pointed the freed madman away, and away.

"You who were Famine. Come now, and make a single bug out of a corrupt and dying world that we shall push all over. Then you may make to meal the Earth entire."

They left that awful place, and yet Methos tarried and did linger, as a note he left, and this was a note to be found out.

"Come now, You Highlander. Come and find us, though to what end, I could not say in any wise. The winner, as the loser, is not yet chosen by me. Yet you shall be among those that Death picks out, to fight that last fight."

DAWSON'S TAVERN

A man is not his kin, and this is known. The Watcher was no more the fallen Hunter than he was one of his fellows who sought those young girls, stakes in hand and the bane of nightkinders. Dawson was Dawson, leg or legless, doubter or steadfast, hostage or hero true. And he opened those books that had no paper that bespoke persons who did not exist, this to a man he should not know at all.

"You Highlander. Know you and your woman with you, that these other lesser fiends who were called Horsemen, are surely passed into dust. Were they made as I, this time would be long past. Were they made as nightkind, wood would have met their ribs. Being as you are made, they tasted steel on their dull tongues, and that was that. Seek them no more, I say."

Macleod would yet seek them, and he would seek their emptied skulls and backbone segments with no let at all, but to dry his lady's tears.

"The Two are yet Quick, and not Quickenings. Is it then so vast a leap to ask if so for the Two, then so for all The Horsemen as well? True Fiend and Accused Friend have walked often in names and lives that were teasing puzzles to be ciphered, and riddles to be broken, with dry cryptic hints of what was contained in what now is."

The Lady Of The Voice was also the very soul of impatience. The haste that did make her see a betraying learner as a millennial demon now pushed her pretty voice to cry out.

"We will seek Pestilence. Pestilence is yet quick, and he is slippery with that. That Pestilence endures and that Death stands with him should be all our sight."

"Lady Cassandra is my elder, and well-beloved of me. But say, can she see aught but The Two alone? What place and what haunt and at what hour would you have us find they who are so crafty? They are again The Two. If they may be again The Four, then I daresay that this will be all their sight."

The Watcher drew these allies back again, and this was his wont.

"Let not this humble tavern-keeper be set aside without exposing those harshest truths first. Information is gathered by scattering, and this is known. These two were of the northlands, even when North was just called Cold. They were men, though not in their acts. And here are such as these whose first death is lost to books, and to talk. Now again, what men are called for Silas and Caspian, at least for those with eyes to look aside?"

His art lessened not one wit for the use of silicon and lightning, that Watcher nodded in apparent knowing.

"Here is a fiend, and a vile butcher. He is locked away in the lands once held by Tepes and Stalin, only he is no defender, true or false. Lady Cassandra, will you swear an oath at this viewing?"

And she saw that digital capture, which could in fact capture nothing at all of the thing she saw before her, and of the memories stirred by those bared teeth.

"The Watcher is kind, and he has given us much. Highlander, you spoke truth. But let us away, and away, and when it is asked anew whether those Four are yet quick, let us be quicker still with our retort."

And in that place, for what is time to those who do not die as we, neither Lady nor Highlander found that gulping fiend. The second jailer spoke grimly of the fate of her first.

"Oh, you late visitors. For that fiend and butcher, who is called Evan Caspari, has awayed and as he walked, he wholly destroyed the goodly, incorruptible, sainted man who ruled this last best hope of wretched humanity. Ask not of early visitors for such a demon. For they are not known here, and like not known at all to such as I."

"Then, you good lady, I shall sure away, and the Highlander with me."

Yet the Highlander would not be put off, as any would know, and as knew better than most The Oldest.

"Hie us now, Lady Cass, to the pit that kept that which was Famine not well enough at all, nor at all was he held fast in it."

"Why, You Highlander? The Two Are The Three Again. Let us seek the blood from their necks, and have aught more to do with this place of reeking and madness made so epidemic, it seems the whole of the world."

"Ask you why? Why, then, look you to espy. For what large dusty tomes told us not at all, this meager book which admonishes to close before striking bids us seek the vineyards near the town proper of Bordeaux, and to room at De Seze. The Oldest wished us to find it, and thereby find him. He is all our ally, and I have proven this."

But the lady who went where she would and permitted unclad glimpses when she would was once made a slave, roughly, and these thoughts are not quick banished.

"It is Death who left it, not your fabled Oldest, this gentle thing I have never glimpsed. Aye, he lures us to the lands of Hugh Capet, and of Louis De La Sol. But he means to make of you Louis Seize and me Marie Antoinette. He is all our worst fiend, and I have proven this."

That Highlander began to guide them both, and yet his nod was a regretful one.

"My lady speaks of traps, and we as lambs to be sheared and butchered. Nay, I say. We are as the rabbit, chomping merrily pon carrot, knowing that the trap must be tripped, or aught is learned. If help The Oldest has called down, he shall know help. If Hell, why then, he shall see Hell."

Yet when the pair made for that ciphered place, it surely seemed that the Highlander was greatly foolish, and the lady properly correct.

"Oh, Highlander! Why, then, seek we bread crumbs, when it is the wolf we hunt? This place is not where Death would meet us, but where he would keep us well, til swords sail through the necks you have in your way proffered up to them. He is the liar, and more he is the lie himself. Death is Death, and is not your ally or your great helpmeet. What he assembles anew is a thing seen not by men of this age, nor yours, nor even that of Tak Ne, who was called also Ramirez. Those hooves shall kick apart your world, all while you wait on a friend you do not have, and more, have not ever had. You seek to cleave Pestilence and leave Death standing. Fool! Would you duel with me, and take only my heart, knowing well I may grow another, so long as I should keep my living head?"

In a great rage, the Highlander cried out.

"Stand away, woman of words, aye, as many words as Pestilence spouts and spews. If Pestilence is destroyed, then Death becomes The Oldest, and the Oldest is my boon companion in a war with the darkest powers. And hear the words of one who was Kronos to the sons of England, when Bonnie Charlie fell to the mud. Revenge is a poor eraser, of truth and of memories. If you would erase the stain of he who was once Death, why then your choice is done. Vengeance is mine, sayeth The Lord. But Life he grants us as ours, and to ours more life than some. Let Life swallow Death. Let only your living defeat the fiend Methos was."

His grip was firm and strong, and he held her fast. But Lady Cass knew well in her own heart, where truths for one and one alone are held fast, that the memories were far stronger than Witch, Highlander, or Horseman. She thought them realer than she herself, and by this thought, they were this, and this is all that is required for stealing vengeance rights from the throne of The One.

Abandoned Submarine Base

BOURDEAUX

Where underboats once made their way, the overlords of history now walked, and looked about. Was it truly most curious that the most curious of all was wrongly dullarded War? For he most amusedly asked what any man might well ask, if they but saw this odd remove.

"Brother Death? Is this place meant to be your poorly lit dungeons of the damned dead? Is this place meant to be the acidic innards of Brother Famine's sick belly? For it is not meant to be mine, and I am fair certain of this."

Death looked up from a book which had the aspect of Testaments, but was surely not so, in the sight of Pestilence, scourge of that book's One True.

"Brother War should think of Monmouth, and Troyes, and Mallory, and Tennyson, White, Boorman and Python. Kronos would be Arthur, a man he would have cleaved gladly. Heh. For I suppose then I must find a way to be his Lancelot, this in all things."

"War knows not of this Arthur, of tables rounded that cause meals to slip off, and of weapons that wait on those tables instead of bread. Oh, where are the apples, and the horses we shall feed those apples to, and the stables in which our horses will rest?"

That Famine knew great heaps of laughter, to hear War speak so, yet War laughed not at all.

"What then is War good for? Nothing, and let it be said anew, Nothing. In what tree dwelt you, and in what cave did you squat, as men counted ten by twenty score? They say the lights are bright on Broadway, but those who see mounted bemasked riders shall think us very dim clowns indeed. Oh, and are not clowns fellows to geekly feasters pon bat and rat? What say you that War's caged mouse is meal stead' of Mickey? Horses and stables. Tsk. Tis a pity and a misfortune and a detriment to our society that wily Famine was given under keyed doors, when War's brains are softer and greatly putrid, and this is known. And I have said that this is known. "

With that War took to axe, and Famine to sword, and this clashing and gnashing went forward as Death, who was also The Oldest, read of a book proper bound and held, and this was his world as his brothers sought to give the other to his cold embrace.

"Hear me, O Famine! I say Hear Me, O Famine! War knows none of your petty strictures. If horseback we seek, we shall not be gainsayed in this quest. The Mounted Gods ride in any place that we espy. The foodstuffs we want are in our mouths. The women we desire do aught save service us. The sun rises, for we will it, and if we but will it, so shall it rise in the west. And what of clowns? If they think us clowns, let them but stare at our juggled balls, and go then witless as they see that these are truly their own heads. Then, there shall cease all talk of merrymaking, and of circuses. And let it be said that if Famine dines of mouse, then it is War who after will dine of Famine. You were well locked away, and that place was not low enough, I think, to be worthy of my brother. Then, though, I fear there is no place such as you will soon seek, when my sword finds its mark, and that is your chicken's neck."

Yet this feud was made quick work of, and blade and axe made to strike not neck but ground. Bold Pestilence lashed out mightily and with great rage, gainst' the battlers.

"Oh, you fiends! As for a mere girl's cloak, think you not for your own necks? Though the foolish world raises arms and armies to stay our mighty hand, ne'er shall we do so in sight of each other. Your blades may drink oceans of blood, yet may never know one another's, and this is forbidden. What says Death on this sorry matter?"

"Why, Death only speaks in the shadow of Pestilence, my brother. As the Arthur I read of may not lie with his sister, and as his first knight may not lie with his queen, and his son may not seek to overthrow him, so may we each not take arms gainst the other. And this is known."

Emboldened by sugary words that would yet rot his teeth, Pestilence grabbed each Mounted God up in turn, and stood them up around the table, which, as War had proclaimed, was not primed for decent feasting. Their arms outstretched, he clasped them as one arm, seeking to choke infinity.

"We Four leap from the summit of man's petty imagination, and we wallow in the pit of his nightmares. We are The Mounted Gods. Gainst our measure, who is Adolf, but an art student with Chaplin's looks yet no hilarity at all? Gainst our gait, who is Genghis, but a vaulter of walls? Gainst our terror, how dare Atilla shout that he was The Scourge Of The One? Let it never be forgot that no band, whether proselytizers from Galilee, Vikings of The Norseland, Brownshirts Of Berlin or Minstrels of Liverpool have ever rocked the Earth as we do, merely by our Gathering, and that this shall displace and make small that other gathering, which fools always proclaim is nigh. We are crueler and more feared than Morningstar, and aye, more feared than the master he shook off. These are the words of Pestilence. These are the words of Kronos--Master Of The Night, and Leader True Of The Mounted Gods!"

Ever more was this his time, and his place within it, and this was all the mind of Pestilence, and this like as not dwelt only there.

"Ho, you Mounted Gods! War asks of our swords, and of our axes, and of our horses? Pestilence will not mock him in this. Instead, I ask, where are the blades that split the atom? Where is the axe that cleaves the bitterest fruits from the double spiral of life itself? Where is the horse with power now to climb unto the heavens, and spray down what such as we will see spread about?"

Whether Death or The Oldest, he saw War's confused mien.

"While your axe made wood, sweet War, men bit into many apples, such as we had bid him not ever do. Two men with keys may unlock seals well beyond the seven of legend. If so this floating egg were not cracked outright, the children of Adam would for uncounted cycles envy those who had the good fortune to meet my embrace."

Pestilence spread wide his arms with a flourish wholly untoward, but such was his untrammeled joy. Before them was a place of glass containers, and of chittering monks, seeking bananas and peanuts and shiny things, but there were none in that place. No, there were no bright things at all, in that place where the world was to be undone.

"Hear me, you Pestilence. Famine is apt to proffer his regrets to War, pon viewing this. War is not at all softened in brain, for at least he would bring an axe to battle with. You would have us fight with monkeys. Pray tell me, is Methos now Davy Jones, and which of us will be called for Peter Tork?! Famine begs that you say this is not so."

"Death would not be Davy, and so begs with Pestilence as does Famine, else War is made to wear a skicap."

Pestilence allowed for such talk, for this was surely his day, and that day was as no other.

"You Mounted Gods speak of false musicians, when we shall soon be playing with the horns of Heimdall and Gabriel. But those horns shall be purchased by the labors of Einstein, and of Pasteur. For it is their thoughts that remade the world, and it is their works in which we shall remake it yet again. These monkeys are but jars, vessels into which I breathe my truest distillation. Behold, the new destroyer! It is but liquid to look upon. It is nameless, and yet so was once the crawling thing that reduces a man to helplessness, that he may not fight off even a cold. It is Pestilence, and now behold my mighty hand, as I raise through my surrogate the mighty spectres of fear and savage delirium. It is made as I, and that is to say, it may not be unmade by men. As before, so now, and so after, and thus it shall ever be, all will know of our ride, though not a hoof is raised. The End Of Days these paltry men seek, and who shall deliver it unto them? Why, it is we. And it is done. Watch, I craft this thing's frame. Watch, I call up meager treasure to push this thing of ours forward. Watch, I have found Death anew, and he shall say how men will once more fear the reaper, and make old Charon a busy fellow once more."

Death came to the sink, and water he placed in a smallish glass. This glass he stirred, and then held it high, as though a banner.

"In parks are fountains. A vessel shatters by force, and it is spread in that manner. All near will breathe of it, and then they will be no more."

Pestilence waited for words that did not come, and grew to have no patience with poor humor.

"Pour my virus then, back into that same sink, and let it go all to waste. For who will be slain in the story you tell, Death? Not enough. Better that I had not found you at all."

Famine laughed anew, and this seemed sure his wont.

"Men will avoid fountains, and such will be our legacy. Death makes me afraid, as I have not been since days untold. My fear causes me to quiver. All, pray--watch Famine as he quivers."

Death pointed about him, and his face held back quiet rage, to be so mocked.

"Any fool may slay, and any and every fool has. But who is noticed? Bloody Jack is noticed. Zodiac is noticed. We were noticed, and noticed we will be again. Think of how the Greek masters made notice. But why speak I of Greeks, to those usual suspects who do not know the cinematic origins of 'the usual suspects'? The fountain is overture. A public pool is the dimming of the lights. Our first act shall shatter the audience, for the water they sip has been met at its source by a single drop of the Pestilence. Two drops will hit the heights. Then O, what heights will be hit. Our show, which began so small, will in due time, bring the house down, when there is no one at all left to applaud it. That wil leave a short intermission, and a second act carried out upon lakes and rivers and oceans. All by the shock waves carried forward by the merest stamping of my foot."

Death and Pestilence smiled as one, though with greatly differing cause.

"Pestilence bows before Death in this thing. It has been sorely long since I viewed his art, and it is all my wonder. Brothers, it has begun, and it begins this very eve. We shall do as Death bids, and the old is new. These Are The Words Of Pestilence. These Are The Words Of Kronos--Master Of The Night!"

As it was even at Herod's Slaughter, the beefy hands of War were gentled by those wee small things that chitter and are merely happy to be fed, and in their ken is aught of prizes, swords or worlds ending. Death, who was also the Oldest, seemed of a grim mien, and War could scarce turn away from such a sight.

"You Death? Where is your joy, at our turning together once more? So pleased am I, the face of Famine is near to pleasing for me, or at least it does not make me feel quick for my scabbard."

Death looked on at the scene of man and monkey, and made a labor of offering his smile, yet labor it was, and labor it surely seemed.

"Greatly is Death pleased, you War. Death merely thinks thoughts of himself, perhaps to a man, perhaps to a woman, perhaps yet to a world, and even perhaps to the gods themselves. Fear not of Death's affection for War. Let it be said that of his brothers, that Death loved War best of all."

A laugh, great and full of throat and esophagus, rang through the halls of that wicked place, so it seemed less wicked as a certainty.

"Oh, I think that I am surely the soft-brained thing of Famine's taunts! For a body to grow in concern over deep thoughts by Death, when this is what Death does, and this is known. And this was ever so. Yet I may be remiss in my dismissal. It is well and meet and proper that this thing should be all the same. For we no longer ride, but piddle poison into ponds, to hear you tell it. Where is my axe? Where are my foes? Oh, pray you, brother. Pray you that this little nameless spew that Pestilence holds as his own lost child, that Little-Booted Roman Imperator, is all greenish glow and no venom at all."

Death spoke as one who had seen a play's end, yet would not speak upon it directly.

"Sweet War will soon now know his axe. Sweet War will drink deeply of the eyes of his truest enemy. As a river flows and seeks greater waters, some matters may not readily be put aside. Such is it for the work of Pestilence, if it is but released any at all. But I think in wonder at the hundred score we have managed with a want of carnage. But I gasp in wonder at the hundred score we have managed without crafting terror. And I stand in wonder at the hundred score we have known power over only ourselves, alone."

"Death speaks for War in this thing! For my wonder is also at how such as we endured in such a state. Yet endure we have, and endure we will, and our strength will shatter the firmament and the heavens above, and these words are known well to Death, being first his own. The large things will be all ours again. Pray, will bold Pestilence allow me a small thing, a boon? I crave of him only this small pet."

Death labored greatly then, and his smile seemed truer then, and his hand upon the shoulder of War seemed truer than true, as answer he gave up.

"Let it be said that of his brothers, that Death loved War best of all."

Death departed the dank dim place, and this oath would he swear one last time, ere all was done.

In their place of small comforts, Highlander and Lady played games of word, yet this game rivaled the game that all immortals play, for its ferocity and deadly earnest.

"You Highlander. Say to your lady that you will slay Methos, away and away."

"You Lady, my Cassandra. Is it fit or meet that Methos should die?"

"You Highlander. Tell true to your lady that you can slay The Oldest, and end his five millennia of deceit and lies."

"You Lady, my Cassandra. I will do as I must, and if this I must do, then it is so, and it is done."

"You Highlander. Swear loudly and with spirit to your lady that upon your sword, Cold Death itself will die."

"You Cassandra. I say like as not, The Oldest is all our hidden ally. What say you?"

"You Highlander. I say this to your notion, and I say thee nay, and what is more, I say thee never!"

There came a message, and though it was that The Highlander made no show of any happenstance, Lady Cassandra took up anew a game of oaths.

"You Highlander. Say to me that such was not the message of Methos."

"You Lady. I say it was a message of smallish, and not large matters at all."

"You Highlander. Tell me true that such was not the practiced lies of The Oldest, meant to entrap your good but foolish heart."

"You Lady. I tell you true that my credit has been made a question of. Doubtless that Redstone, my overmodern learner or my Lady Raven have made good use of it, and this has imperiled me."

"You Highlander. Swear to your Lady that where you go, that you do not answer the call Of Death."

"You Lady. I answer only my own call, and ask only that as I am he who leaves, so shall it be that you should be she who stays. And I must insist that this be so."

The Oldest waited on Holy Ground, and in that place did the Highlander, who had held his tongue around his lady, seek out Death's presence, if not  
his company.

"Oh, You Oldest Of All. Or should I in fact call you Death? Or should I in fact call you Adversary and Accuser, Satan himself, the liar who said he knew of no Cassandra, and no Horsemen? My trust I fear was sorely misplaced, and it was placed with a destroyer of innocents, slain for their crumbs and aught else! Will you now speak of wicked kings and the skulls of subjects, to hide away your own wickedness? What manner of being speaks to the student of Connor Macleod?"

The Oldest-Also-Death would not meet that withering gaze. But he would meet words with words.

"You Highlander. Know that if you counted all your years, and added them to those of your rasp-voiced teacher, you could yet not hope to add up all that I have been. You ask why I would harshly deceive such a one as you. Better to ask, why would I yield up harsh truth to one such as you. Already you look at The Oldest and see only Death. Yet know the roughness of that world was ours, and we were not its children, but its fathers. Such power of choice is basest metal now, yet then was it purest gold, and we held all coin in our purses. I think that you will ask anew of your lady and her tiny village. You call the death of her folk and the fiery cleansing of her place for my betrayal. Yet you know not of my truest betrayal."

"Then, You Oldest, the younger of two Highlanders would yet know more."

The Bronze Age

The Mounted Gods had reaped a bounty of flesh, and it was all soft, so-pretty, tender flesh. The sword of Pestilence raised many skirts, and cut away others, and this lead him to think of the use of other swords.

"Death! I say to my brother, good sport and good hunt, and a goodly feast will surely follow, one of melons, peaches, and skins peeled back. What fruit is chosen of Death, and shall he have this fruit drink of him?"

The wretches before Pestilence were not yet bound, and they were also yet not as beauteous as the adorned slave that held mead for Death, and Death alone. Pestilence saw her smile, and knew well that such smiling was his brother's province.

"Pestilence, I choose no fruit on this day. The hunt alone, brother, drips pon my lips, and it has been sweet. This harvest is all to Pestilence, fruits and meats alike. I am attended to by our quarrelsome girl, now wholly my thing. Ee'n now, she sees that I am wearied, and bears my cup as she knows she must. There were times once when she was all of a rebel's stand, and I would break that rebellion by hand alone. Those times are done. Are there yet other endings about us?"

Gaze was met with gaze, and what did brother see in brother as Death gained back his tent? Was it, as the comical constable was given to say, a small thing which then and there must needs be nipped in the bud, ere it grows up the flower of change?

Inside Methos's tent, Cassandra waits for him, smiling. She gives him a cup of something to drink, and follows him as he walks by and sits down. He barely acknowledges her, but when he says something about the drink being good she tells him that she cooled it in the river for him. She takes a cloth and starts wiping his hands, then his face. He turns to her and lifts a hand to touch her cheek, but they both turn as Kronos walks in.

"You girl. For my place is neat and kempt."

That Cassandra blushed and breathed anew, for her Lord Death was in her well pleased.

"My Lord. It is only meet and fit that Death should not be assaulted by petty clutter."

"You girl. For my things are all in sight, that I may know and know of them."

"My Lord. Since I am by Death's decree the only thing of yours given life, motion, brains and vitality, it is given that I should attend to those things, my brother the blanket, my sister the water-pan, and your cloaks, which are also my sweet siblings."

"You Girl. You are no sibling to the mere cloth you take across my face and hands. Yours is not the lot of the water you use. You are more to me than the cooled drink you placed in the chill waters. The cheek I caress is the most treasured of my treasures."

The prayers of the supplicant were answered by her god, and she closed those pretty eyes in ecstasy.

"My Lord. Shall I then lay still pon my back, or still pon my stomach? I swear that I shall not abuse the power of speech you in grace conferred unto me."

"You Girl. My Woman. You shall so abuse it, as in pleasure you moan. And you shall only be beaten and whipped if you do not move, and respond to my touches with your own. Death has been your harsh taker of life, and your cruel giver of life. But Death will be release for you this night, and release will you grant unto Death."

What was the game of the Oldest, that Death, in this matter? Was he made by his slave into a man, and a man who wants that woman he wants, and not as a slave? Did he wish to then earn the heart and head he owned already as sandals? This answer wil not be found, for the wind found the tent, and the wind bore on its wings Pestilence himself.

"Ho, Brother! From that wretched little thing you have raised up one who is as us, or near to like. Succulent fruit she is, as perfect as this fruit she picks for you alone, and as is made more perfect still by this place she keeps for you."

Death knew his imperilment, and with two fingers placed pon her forehead, he pushed that girl all away, and pon her back.

"She is to me as that cloth as I have bid her wipe my hands and face. Her brother is my blanket, and her sister is my water-pan. Why, mere moments agone, she queried as to whether my pleasure was her front or her back, and how still should she remain? She is a girl, and girls we have, and girls may we gain at our whimsy. She is that which bears my mead, and so it is cold and full, why should I fret upon her name or her face?"

That Pestilence grinned widely, and seized up the girl who was as nothing to the one who treasured her best of all.

"My brother speaks pearls of greatest wisdom, and this is known. As for a cloak, as for a horse, so for her favors. You Girl. As for Death, so for Pestilence."

That girl made her stand, for she had but one god, and would hold no other before him.

"My Lord Death. I was slain by you, and am yours. I was birthed again by you, and am yours. Though offered no choice, I would be yours if given one. Pray let me render unto Death that which is uniquely his."

Death turned away, and did not watch his treasure removed.

"I will not tell you to go with my brother. For what is Death belongs also to Pestilence, and aye, to Famine and to War as well. And if they seize a grain of sand from beneath me, will I strike my brothers' down over such a matter? Should I even speak, when I have so very many grains of sand?"

To the tent of Pestilence the two went, and Death recounted without sight what would come to pass, and this was soon so.

"My brother strikes at her, and these blows are my charge, for I allowed him to know the girl had worth to me. She cries, and Pestilence vows lustily to give her true cause to cry out. The girl at last relents, and vows that she will give Pestilence the due she wished to give Death. You Pestilence. Do you fancy the girl? Is it my softness you truly fear, or have you wondered, as men are apt, why it is a broken slave chooses her killer, and the taker of her honor and her freedom? Do you ask why she craves Cold Death and eschews Bold Pestilence? For if things must be just so for Pestilence to know joy, than in this I know how Pestilence may be duped, and perhaps yet brought low."

Death winced, at a cry of pain from one who did not offer cries of pain.

"Oh, that girl has brought my brother low, and she leaves, she leaves forever, for Pestilence has received the due she wishes to give me, for my betrayal. And betrayer I am, for a slave is still promised protection, and mine I withdrew. So having failed you, Cassandra, your name and your freedom I yield back. You will need these both, when you find your Gods were demons, and that new life was not granted you by death. How many of your lives will that harsh desert claim? And will you ever remember that moment you were less my slave than my woman? No, I fear. The Desert will bake away any of the man you knew so briefly. I am alone, but you are free, and this must needs suffice. So suffice it shall."

Never so great a rage held Pestilence in his heart, for thoug setback, and aye e'en defeat had he known, ne'er had such emerged from the hand of one so low to him. Came he hot from his hellish tent, crying out a god's own rage.

"Death! Our slave has dared rise up gainst me. She must needs be found, and her effrontery punished so that Sisyphus and Ixion stare in sympathy at her plight, so horrid will it be."

Death was ever crafty, and in his brother's rage, did steal away the mask of Pestilence.

"Why, brother? Did she truly wound you? Meant she aught to you? Of course she did not. Of course she does not. She is as nothing, save the desert sands, and to those has she returned. I will not waste my godly gaze to seek a grain of sand. And you, Pestilence?"

Trapped in a corner fashioned all with himself, bold Pestilence was forced to rein in his marvelous ragings. Thus did Death learn that this could be done, and Death never does unlearn a lesson, and this is known.

"Aye, my brother. What a waste to pursue a mere handful of dust."

But Pestilence was never long trapped, even when that trap was wrought by both Death and Pestilence.

"And but think. Soonways, shall she discover that her life is her own, and she needs not Death to shake off his grasp. Oh, how our godly names will be cursed! What sport, then, as we laugh and laugh at what she must soon know certain. How loudly will she curse you, Brother?"

"You Pestilence. Cassandra shall always curse the name of Death, first and worst of all. And she shall curse it a thousand times daily, you Pestilence. And she shall curse it a thousand times."

And Death spoke these words as though of new sandals cut too low on one small corner.

Yet who can know the heart of Death? Who can know the Heart Of The Oldest? Not Kronos, that Pestilence. Not Duncan, That Highlander. Is it even yet known to Methos, that Oldest? Can Death die, yet never truly know Death?

Present Day

In the past, it is ever night, as we poor things reach graspingly for the previous day. So it is that merest talk of the past may consume the whole of the day, ere even Immortals glance for sun or moon. The Oldest showed tinges of what some call shame, but like as not had naught to do with Death, as his tale came round again.

"And could I have gasped up that grain of sand, and broken her to me anew? Aye, I will vouchsafe such a thing. Yet such a grasp would have shattered my treasure, as Pestilence would then learn certain of her worth to me. I see her yet now, as the sun claimed her in endless circles, days becoming moons, ere she found that simple small place like the one she had known. The one burned away by all of us. Yet still she walked, and she would have no let in this. Her rage as she knew certain that her life was ever her own carried her well from War. Her empty and emptied stomach twisted and pulled and tugged upon her, but in this fast she would be away and away from Famine. The heat burned as must have Morningstar, yet could she have gazed upon that burning orb, boiling away her skin and hair, and not praised it ad astra, for little more than it was not the gaze of Pestilence? Did she find water where there was none, drinking deeply of the joy that said she no longer slept in the bosom of Death? Though I am not her, I feel safe that I may vouchsafe this as well."

That Highlander sought the truth's heart, if such even existed in that time, and in that company.

"Then the Oldest will swear true to me that he and Pestilence are done. We two will move against all his schemes, as did we when that singer sought to make our kind known. Though I shall not credit that four poor mounties may hold in their hands a globe. And speak not to me of mere survival, for what value has our endurance, if Pestilence is yet virulent?"

That Death moved as though in a great fury, and struck well that Highlander cross his unguarded face.

"Hear Me, you beardless boy! Grab up your vengeful lady, and pray get you gone from this place and what shall most certainly begin here. I may not stand against Pestilence, and you may not stand against Pestilence, and this world and all its works shall fall to him. Aye, it is so that the Mounted Gods shall ride no more on horseback. Nay, you fool. Famine shall ride in harvests that are not, for no cause save known to four. War shall ride in trucks laden with automatic weapons, sent into those places that need them not at all, with good soldiers whispering of four truck drivers shot scores of times. Pestilence awaits in a small fount, and the Highlander would do well to rip him all away, and this sheet shall say how this may be so."

That Highlander read well of his charge, but held Death in that place, for his queries were many.

"As for a fount, and so then for a great well? What place is Death's? Where does he ride, and how is he carried? Does he await the winner, or seek to choose who this shall be?"

"Why, Death endures, you Highlander. Death ever endures, for he has the time that you, charged with turning back the first strike of Pestilence, have not at all."

The hero moved with the speed that heroes do, that mystic speed that safely bypasses meddlers and molesters, constables and caterwaulers, geniuses and the greedy. The hero shooed away, as heroes do, the innocent and the interfering, the curious and the crazed, the thrillseeker and the thrower down. The hero found, as heroes do, that his directions were free of error or cipher, misreading or misleading, nerves or nattering. The fount remained a fount, and this was always certain, for this is what heroes do, and need scarcely be noted, save that it must be.

But as heroes must, can their sworn foemen do less?

In the sleeping-place kept by that Highlander, his Lady was stirred by the presence of another. Calling out to her lover, she was not to see him.

"Highlander, you have tarried overlong. Sought you that fiendish Oldest, and is he with you now?"

War moved forward, and spoke only one word.

"Greetings."

Cassandra sought another corner, but from there emerged Famine, who spoke only one word.

"Greetings."

And her last egress was cut all away, as a bodkin she knew well found purchase in her ribs.

"Greetings. I return now your sweet gift to your master Pestilence. And I will vouchsafe that for the Highlander--He is not here."

Though staggered, the lady thrashed about and would try to gain back herself.

"You are not made my master. Had I but known in times agone that you were made as me, then know sure I would have made my first task to cut your head free of its evil moorings!"

But Famine quick gained her sword, War harshly gained her hand, and the dagger of Pestilence found her heart, not once or twice but many times ere she was lifted away.

Death had made well his warning, and Pestilence had crafted well his reminder, both to that Highlander and aye, to Death as well. Yet was another reminder in the offing? And who would do best to keep reminders, and in so doing, keep well their living head?

"Brother Death, pray tell me true. How many were slain, when the beplagued mist arose from that fount, to do our work, and begin our work again?"

That Death gave not true answer, nor lie did he proffer up.

"Would Pestilence now have Death gain in his purview omniscinece? I was not about, when our battle was joined. Death comes after such beginnings, and is not known to merry himself with odd preliminaries."

Pestilence was all calm and peace, to see him, and to see him was not to view him at all.

"Yet what then does Death merry himself with? A missive to The Highlander? That Highlander who surely, with great aid and comfort, has all undone our potion, and the smallish torpedo which was the wrapping of our tender gift? I must think such surely, else unthinkably, a plan well crafted by Death has proven, when leaping from paper used to skin flayed, that it was judged, and being judged, found greatly wanting!"

Now a trap of ciphers was laid, and in this trap, the greatest riddle of all yet lay untouched. Who better knew Death? Death, who had made no choice that may be discerned? Pestilence, who knew Death well and perhaps knew him too well? Or the one who made a leap all of faith, on one who held no faith to lose, and this is known?

"If my scheme was so judged, its younger brother shall evade all such judgement. If the foe of the Mounted Gods was made wise to such a scheme, I say that this is all of a yet greater scheme. And in this scheme shall the foe who has driven me away from my true self be brought low for all time."

Pestilence walked broad circles around his brother, and still his calm ruled him, his storm set all aside.

"I tell you that Pestilence and Death are of one mind, and one thinking. I say that this is so."

"Death must needs gainsay Pestilence. My brother's secret paths to his goals are ever his own. They are possessed by no other, even to myself."

"Yet Pestilence is insistent, and says that there is fearful symmetry twixt and tween the very brains of Death, and of Pestilence. Death sits patiently at all times, at the good right hand of the grim creator."

"Nay I say, and again, I say nay. Pestilence and Death are not the ones you speak. Our goals are one, but the brothers are four, and we are two of those brothers. United are we, save for form and thought."

Pestilence did then grasp up a smallish infernal device, yet it was made not to guide idiot boxes, nor to rouse sleeping vehicles. It was for but one direst purpose, and this was to make myrrh of water, this to crucify a city's whole. As he spoke thus, he bid Death see what he could see, caught well in the dankest of jails.

"This will place my gift, I should think, into the heart of a much larger fount, a new wine for Bordeaux, the last wine most shall ever drink of, for it is known that wine is a detriment to vitality. This wine contains the last of all truths, and that truth is yours, Brother Death. When the cipher is called, there shall be both our best works, and this is known by you. But bear witness to the symmetry twixt us. Was it in my ken that the Highlander should be led away by Death, and thereby rescue that one small fount? Be certain this was so. Was it in your ken that whilst the clown was made to play with spray-bottles, that we should reclaim that which was ours? I am certain that it was. Our Cassandra is doubly certain of this, and she said this, and she swore this, and she did so that War and Famine saw fit to cover their ears, to hear such oaths! Our Cassandra knows her Lord Death, and her Lord Pestilence knows Death better still, and aye, better than Death. I cry only for The Highlander, and I cry well. Were I so betrayed, why then Death should surely die!"

Death but curled a lip, and spat well into the cage beyond, striking that quarrelsome girl of ages past.

"Death shall not die by Highlander, be he foppish clown or fierce killer of scar-throated giants, or e'en the odd red-haired boy spotted in visions of seers I have employed. Pestilence has spoken well and truly of how great we are known to the other. Yet our most exalted and flawless of schemes shall surely bring that Highlander to this place. Of him, I care not, and I care nothing, and I care far less than not or nothing. But e'en a fool's wrath carries with it the means to destruction. For he has turned away from my countless good and honest exhortations to keep well his head, and perhaps endure near to myself. He casts his lot with greatly thickheaded thoughts of heroism. He sees this as the truth of reality. And what illusions this clown claims to see, even the Oldest may not dissuade him of."

That Pestilence drew in the concern of his brother's face, and it was as though it could sustain him, or was this his thing he saw?

"Death is well to be concerned of our foe, but yet it is again that we have thought as one, aye, prior to your own thoughts. Look about you. Where is our Famine? Where is our War? Why, I have sent them away and away, and when they should come again, I swear that they shall hold that Highlander's once-living head. And then shall I permit them to fight and tear over it. What sport shall that be, after I claim his hair's back lock? I will wear it, I think, and let every immortal know who was bested by The Mounted Gods!"

Death remained as he always had, yet how was he always? Again, is this known to any?

"Then let me say this of that, Brother. It is a good thing. Fit and meet, and it will remove an obstacle to my plans, and I will vouchsafe this."

That Highlander felt well the presence of another, as he rounded one of many corners in his search and in his delayed return. And in his gaze came War itself, and Famine, he espied with all speed, was quick upon him as well. The dagger of Famine drank of his face, and this was after only glancing blows were tossed about. It came soon that the three were upon a bridge. and bridges, it is known, must needs surely be crossed, and there and then turning back is no longer known. War pointed and laughed heartily, thinking his foeman the very weakest of all the creatures he had faced.

"Oh, what sport, you child! The Mounted Gods welcome you to the last place you will see or know. The head of Famine will gain War the head of The Highlander. The head of War will likewise gain Famine the very same head, and I will call this head my piece of furniture. You should give over that living head, that I may sit on it in glory."

Famine fell down into the battle with The Highlander, and his sword's movements were embodied chaos, and rebirthed frenzy, and no grace at all.

"War does not speak for Famine. Great fat and stupid War forgets that the Highlander is only so bound by crashing lightning if he should slay a Mounted God, and this he will never do! Now, it is said that there is a Highlander who is as a bull steer, and he is raspily voiced. But Ho! I think that this is that other Highlander, highly voiced, and to me, he shall be as tenderest, most succulent veal. Here, you should let me eat of your head."

That Highlander proved well that he was done merely meeting Famine sword for sword, and now met him dagger for dagger as well, yet not fore that same dagger met Famine's cheek, and now the two were oddest twins.

"Did Famine think that he held the only dagger in all the world? Or that no one else at all knew well of its art? Perhaps it is that your brothers should have let that jailer live, and watched over Famine, who is what he has assaulted War as, and crazed for certain. As for the veal you seek, I deny first to Famine any taste of such meat, and that is even if it were not my own flesh. I deny second to Famine the skill he claims with dagger and sword, for that horridly voiced tenor wields his better, and he is dead a year or better! I deny third to Famine the destined nature of his victory. I think that you are the luckless child Kenneth, and by that I do not refer to the trickster Immortal I have known. Know that I deny last to Famine that thing he holds most precious, the feed-hole that has taken down so many good and decent folk to that infinite gullet. You have said that I have neither chance nor choice. I say instead--You Have No Head!"

War saw the lightning crash, but trusted not his eyes. He heard well the head of Famine fall free of its place, and crash like a torpedo pon the bridge deck, yet trusted not his ears. War smelled the fetid mix that he knew as Famine's blood, and he smelled this as never before, yet trusted not his nose. Yet when his hands grasped upon a head he himself had yet fancied taking, he trusted that his touch was no deceiver.

"Famine, you great and foolish beast! To be slain so, and by an infant, as well. You were neither fit nor meet nor worthy, brother. Would that these aspects would have been yours."

The Highlander stood as Famine could not any longer, and as bold as Pestilence was he now.

"Hear me, O War! I am sorely weakened, yet this shall not long be so. Oer this span I fall, as fell heartless Famine, and as shall fall no less than he who is called for Pestilence! Make this known to him, for I would have him ready, for our final battle this shall be!"

Fell away he did, past the enraged grasp of War,  
and at last past the grip of the fading bolts of Famine, taken well from his severed head. War grasped up his brother's weapon, and looked upon it, and thought of the head it failed to take.

"The sword of Famine is less worthy, even than he, but bear it back I shall. Yet Famine is gone. Who, then, will sup upon the slain, left in the path and track of War? This thing of ours has grown messy, and untoward, and some of its sport is done. Shall we ever laugh again, if him who learned the Clown of Gotham-town laughs no more as well?"

Caged as a beast, the Lady Cassandra cast away the meal given her by Death, and cried out an oath as she went.

"Think you this to be fit or meet? I have unmade your quarrelsome girl, and I have unmade the false gods who whispered to me that they were as my breath. Your broken little thing is gone, you Death. We'll not be taken in anew. The Highlander is made a clown by you, yet Cassandra is not. And when his blinders fall all away, the head of Death falls with them, this I swear."

Death sat poised to strike, or to move, as ever he does, and ever so he shall. Yet in the here and the now, he merely spoke.

"You say well what you are no longer, Lady. Yet bowl-throwing was a true mark of that quarrelsome girl I knew. You speak of my deceptions, yet these deceptions speak less to my glibness of silvered and gilded tongue, than to what a fool believes he sees, which no wise man has the power to reason away. Many have been well deceived, and yet it is noways the Oldest who has deceived them. Know you this as well. When that wild schemer and poor singer hunted me unto my own death, my neck I bent down to The Highlander, yet no katana tasted my neck or its bones. Oh, behold you, brooding and fretting the last of your moments! Was every minute misery, when we knew one another? Was every hour hell, every day disaster, every week worrisome, and every year your pain?"

At last it was that Lady Cass broke her silence, and gave with no pause, and no let.

"My Lord Death has forgotten much, and disowned even more. I came to you not on knees, but in a sack meant for goods. I moved for you not for devotion, but for the desolation of my soul. I lived for you not for the truth of your strength, but for the lie of power you did not have. I served you not because was your lady of courts, but a broken, wretched thing that I do look back upon, and for her I have contempt near to that I hold for you."

Death is cruel, and Death is cold, yet Death may be mercy, this known to all. And mercy may be crushing, or it may take away the crushed.

"Hear me, you Lady. Nay, truly and well hear me, as though mine were not the words of one so despised by you, and rightly thus. Though I was no god, I was your world, for so I willed it. I but spoke, and so you ate hearty or died starving. I but gestured, and so you were beaten or told how fit and meet you were. I but glanced, and my humors were yours. Pray thee, do not despise that girl. She was not you. She had no chance to grow strong, or become better than she was. In time, the life we gave her was all she knew. It comes that jailer and jailed share a bond untoward and unique to them. Mallory, that wordsmith of fallen Arthur, had as his first admirers the guards and their warden, and they fought assassins sent to slay him. There is that bond I have spoken upon. In time, there is even love. But that was then, and this is now. Pestilence is mighty, and Cassandra must please him. Pestilence is mighty, and Death must please him. Death must please him, now as then. Now as then, Death may be no protector to Cassandra, though she should wish this of him, as she wished it then, and found that he could not. And did this fuel the fires of your rage, to ignore that I would place the needs of Death oer yours? I will surely vouchsafe that it did, for such is self-evident."

That Lady bore her gaze well upon Death, and regarded him as one might regard a little thief, and she showed him this respect.

"Talk not of love. This word I have heard, and it lays slumbering in distant memory, yet it does not and it has not and it will not and it never shall while it slumbers dream of you. For know I well of what you pose as, and what you walk as, and what you truly are, and this is known of Pestilence, whose head I shall hold in the hand that does not hold yours. And you shall hold mine, and he shall hold mine, and it is in this manner only shall I bow down to either Death Or Pestilence! Now as then, for Death has spoken well."

"Does my Lady await The Highlander? Await your end, rather, for he has surely met his. He is a smear to War's club, and he is a meal to Famine, and his head shall sit by yours. It need not have been so, had Death but ruled the day."

That Highlander was turned away, at a small bestiary made for small beasts, that pass time for those that need to. His quest was not there.

"Where dwell my foe-men, and my friend half-true, and that lady, known from the time I was a boy? Where are the schemes hatched to rebirth a world now gone, and thereby bring hell on Earth? Or is this Highlander quite the fool called by The Oldest and aye, by the elder Highlander, as well? For where would the servants of hell find respite, save for the place nearest to the bowels of the Earth, and near enough to water to keep the burning souls within from consuming whole their mortal frames. Where boats and ships launched unseen by any, it is there a hidden plan of horseman will come to know revelation."

Pestilence stood in that very place, and he did strike his brother War with harshest queries, meant to gain harshest truth.

"Tell me true, War. Does Famine linger, burying away the headless body of The Highlander?"

"I say to Pestilence that he does not do this."

"Tell me true, War. Does Famine lend away his sword to you, that it may be cleansed, honed, and brought to a sheen?"

"I say to Pestilence that Famine would ne'er lend away his sword, and not to War."

"Tell me true, War. Are we four brothers, those Mounted Gods Of Old?"

That War fell wholly silent, and so it was that Pestilence gave the harshest and truest of answers.

"I say to War that Famine has a head no more. I say that we are now three brothers, and not four, that we ever after shall be four no more!"

"You Pestilence. Pray let War go forth anew, that there shall be Highlander no more! This I have sworn."

Yet it was that Pestilence with a glance led War and Death further below, and to the caged lady, both prize and bait.

"The Highlander shall seek his lady, and this is known. If he gains this place, let him gain it only as her pretty-little pretty-little arse falls flat for lack of the head that keeps it in motion. Joy not, you quarrelsome girl. Your Champion endures only so long as he is not in my sight. Come now, You Death. Bordeaux has long known wine, and so shall it know bitterest dregs and deadliest wine well-soured."

Time in its course reached then the End Of Days, or at least such was approached. Time slowed in its course to nothing. There was the motion of War's axe-blade, honed to destroy forever that once-girl held caged. There was the motion of Death and Pestilence, headed upwards to bring low a whole city, this merely as a beginning. Yet one who was all unyielding would stand and block this last and most dread of all motions. Surely was now The Highlander, and at last came this, the final battle.

"And Lo, I Beheld Two Riders, And A Third After Them, and then no more. Prophecy, where is thy sting when Famine is at last sated? How ever shall the End-Times proceed in such a fashion? Should I send missive to the fearsome Leviathan, and ask that the Rapture be hurried along? Do we need now only six seals? What are the Mounted Gods to become, and what then of the schemes of Pestilence?"

With a great fury greater far than any mere Fury, Pestilence pointed at The Highlander and made call to warn his foe away.

"What shape the Apocalypse, asks the Highlander? Know then that this shall be no burden to brains that are scattered about, ere Last Judgement is called, by angel's horn or horned beast. But the one head purchases by its obedience the strong purchase of another head, to remain atop soft shoulders, pretty neck and firm breasts. It is solely by the bending of Highlander neck that Cassandra endures. The raising of his katana, though, shall see her destroyed, e'en should fall the three you have so mocked. What say you, Highlander? Shall I command of War to undo your Lady, and in the death-blow report that this is done by grace of her own fervent lover?"

The Highlander was o'ermatched, and this rather sorely. But were any there well shocked or put off their mark, when Duncan stopped, and drew his sword?

"Ask, you Pestilence. Ask well of my endurance. But ask it, I pray you, of The Cat, and of The Hunter, and ask it of The Singer, and of The Viking, and of the Voice's student. But tarry not, as you await their response, for only the true Judgement Day will yield you those. And I too shall command War to go and do as he must, for Cassandra would not endure, and e'en have herself not be made at all, if her life purchases the victory of Pestilence. Go then, and say that she shall watch three enter the pit from her perch. Oldest, stand you with me?"

Death walked after War, and gave an answer such as was known for him to give.

"Death stands with victory, and this is known to and spoken of by The Highlander."

The dance of swords began, and this was fierce, this battle of primal force and emergent prince.

"Know you, boy, that Pestilence is the way, and he is the word."

"I gainsay you, Pestilence, and say that your path is largely untrod, and your book is one of empty pages."

Up was met with up, and down with down, and blow with blow, and block with block, parry with parry, and dodge with dodge. It would be so for twelve hours, though it could seem twelve minutes, so was the movement of sands through the hourglass.

"Know, you merest man, that Pestilence is both sunshine and shadow, and he is darkness and he is light. He is the yin, and he is the yang."

"I gainsay you, Pestilence. Your days and your nights are all overcast with clouds, and you may see them now from neither side, so unbalanced a creature are you."

War was met by Death, and honed his axe still further, to find their foe was so near.

"Pestilence has made it all as crystal. If the unthinkable is thought, then the rushing feet of The Highlander shall only catch sight of my axe's good works. If the certain is certain, then Pestilence shall lean his foeman's neck this way, and still shall my axe drink deep. Or is your blade thirsty for such, Death? If so, you answer only to Pestilence, for War yields gladly her living head to you. Oh, but a strange thing goes on. They both yet approach, brother and bother, and their long fight draws them towards us. So it is that our quarrelsome girl grows calm and still at last."

Yet as Lady Cassandra was grabbed roughly out from her cage, there to meet her death, Death now fell away, and in his place stood The Oldest, and The Oldest did block the axe of vengeance. So it was that great waves of shock rode through War, aye, and through the doomed lady. None spoke, and no eyes met for this thing.

A great ruin was made of glass and wood as approached Pestilence and The Highlander. What joy without surcease for even the most hated of foes, to find that one who may be that truest match.

"The Highlander keeps my very feet in motion as we go, and this is almost unknown to me. How well you persist, this after calling the axe of War down upon your Lady's neck. I think that you will next lie together not in a bed, but on a cloud."

"Stay, then, Pestilence, for I would have you know me better. My persistence speaks not of her neck, but of yours. And worry you not of clouds."

In a place so confined and small, may two great pitched battles be joined and not be seen, one by the other? Of course they may not, and of course they were not. Pestilence saw The Oldest battle gainst' War, his most sacred proclamation all undone. War saw Pestilence, and through his eyes begged well for guidance through a place he knew not. Pestilence cried out to see this, and well he might do such a thing.

"Death! You will hear the words of your Master! Death! You will hear the words of your brother!"

War took back the fight, and more than once was The Oldest about with no sword. Yet ever more pointed were his fevered queries to one who moved so oddly to him.

"Death! You do not behave as Death ought, nor as a Mounted God. Heed you well the words of your brothers!"

"War! I am The Oldest Of All Immortals, and The Oldest is barely known to some, and to you not at all, and nor to Pestilence. More, I have sworn this on plains of Palestine, and above a great pit, and now I swear it well here, and finally--We Are Not Brothers!"

And at this, battles pitched and tossed became ever more so, with bold Pestilence's heart ripped away, and the heart of The Highlander begun to beat anew. War moved with his bulk to crush The Oldest, and yet his legs were the greater traitors. The Oldest felt eyes not known to salt go to fog and leak as they never had. War's last movement was then. Pestilence was yet still virulent, e'en at this low measure.

"Know you, you Highlander. I am The Master Of The Night. I am the secret face of your world's present, and I am the one true face of its future. I am made The Alpha. I AM MADE THE OMEGA!!!"

"I gainsay you in all this as well, Pestilence. The Night knows you not. You are not the Alpha. You are not the Omega. You are not the present. You are not the future."

It was done.

"You Are The Past."

The Oldest and The Highlander struck well, and they struck as one, and the first rule of the lives of immortals was well obeyed, as The Highlander completed his gainsay. The Oldest now felt the sting of salted water anew.

"Let it be known that of all his brothers, Methos loved Silas best of all, and Silas have I slain, while his gaze I ne'er met any at all."

And in this once-only a storm began, and it was so great and so fierce, that it was rival to the storm made by the elder Highlander, when he away and away took the head of the scar-throated violator of his wife. And that storm was known well to be so horrid, that Scotsman dreamed that his was the Prize, and the Earth was laid waste by the sun. In such dreams may a body see other worlds, and men that fly on metal wings. They may also see a Pestilence who dodges, and does not fall. They may see another taken by a spirit known to be fierce.

I am a Watcher. I would ne'er gainsay such accounts, for as learned later, there is no one path, no one verse. The verses are multiple, and sometime seen by one another, as such when The Highlander and an errant angel walked where there was no Highlander. These accounts are wholly valid and wholly true, in the verses they are so. But I see no angels, and must walk where I walk, and verse of the verse I know. So know well that Pestilence was relieved of his head and did die, beyond tricks or traps. His essence walked in no other. Yet this Watcher must ask : Why would there be such accounts, if they pointed not to a greater truth? For we have spoken of the loss of a head, and the death of a Pestilence, and where his hot spirit did not wander. Mark well that we have never once spoken that such was the end of all his tales. Could those whose accounts say such speak not of mirrored realms, but to the endurance of that which is more devious than mere evil?

Yet what of the endurance of Once-Death, now The Oldest once again? For when the storm that jumped pell-mell between two men was all done, so it seemed for the Oldest. War was dead, and now it was that the Lady he threatened held his axe, and she meant to use that axe.

"You have spoken of your love for War, and War's head have you taken off. Yet does this erase the enslavement of Cassandra? Does it restore her peaceful village? Does it restore her people? Does it undo violation, and violent spells? Does the head of War turn all your endless lies to truth? I will let War's own axe choose thus, and I think I know how it will choose."

The Oldest was as a broken thing, and if this was all his art, it was art well-performed. No hand was raised to stop the axe, and yet the Lady of Voices heard well a voice.

"My Lady, turn away your wrath! I would see him yet endure. Do this for one who has held you tender, and for your own ravaged spirit. Put away the axe of brutish War, and be free at last."

That Cassandra looked as one betrayed, and spoke so doubly well.

"You would see him endure? Is The Highlander again deceived of The Oldest?"

"Nay, this Highlander knows well what he is, and what he has been. I beg of you to let the Oldest grow older still."

What stayed the hand of vengeance? Was it the gentled exhortations of a kind and good lover? Was it a desire to wield not a weapon of her foemen? Was it a choice to have the guilty stew in their inner filth? Was it forgiveness for and the voice of a young girl, whose happiness was only to please her Lord Death?

"Grow older with him, then, Highlander. For you shall not do such with Cassandra. Do not seek me anew."

And there was no sound at all, after the axe fell thirsty as she went, save for the sobs of The Oldest and the slow, palsied risings of the one who still called him friend, yet still knew him not at all, and like as not never would.

In a place of the dead stood Once-Death, and with him The Highlander. Many matters were now settled. Many more would not see settling.

"The Oldest has proclaimed that once it was that the life of Pestilence lay in his hands. The Oldest knows that Pestilence was as constant as the northern star, and truer in his questing, and his quest and his goal was you. Why was he not slain, then? The Oldest has shown well that his deepest heart lays with endurance."

"I had other concerns, and I let them rule me, when the matter of Pestilence would seek to rack my poor brains. Would his head have eased my path? Aye, I will vouchsafe that. But he was as I, and I held him to myself, and if such as we had genitors, ours would be the very same one. Should Death have called Pestilence unfit for endurance, then Death must also call this fate for Death, and The Oldest has ever chosen to endure."

The Highlander's game was not yet done, and he pressed his verbal incursion well and fairly.

"Was it then that the Oldest schemed to place my Lady in the hands of Pestilence, his hopes high that The Highlander could where The Oldest could not, this to destroy Pestilence and all his works?"

"If the Highlander would call such truth, then perhaps it even is truth."

Yet ere they could leave the dead to their place, one last query had call to be answered.

"What then, of The Oldest for Lady Cassandra? How stands she in the reckoning of a long, long life?"

The Oldest felt wholly in that moment every last second of his near-to three hundred score.

"The regrets of my life number near to a thousand, Highlander, and she is but one. My regrets number near to a thousand--and in my life she is but one."

There we will leave them, these princes of the universe. Here they belong, fighting to survive, in a war with the darkest powers. One is the Oldest, and he shall ever be inscrutable, perhaps even to The Oldest.

The other was born twenty score agone in a place called Glenfinnan. He yet endures. This tale is merely one that calls him by name, and in these tales, he faces others of his Immortal kind, and this battle is pitched, and the prize is the head of the loser, and his power with it. I am a Watcher, charged to record, and not to speak, or at least this is the ideal. My kind knows the great truth of his. There are many claimants to The Prize, yet all but one must fall away. May that one be Duncan Macleod-The Highlander.

For if not him, there are others not like him at all, and we have witnessed their tales this long day. And though their heads are gone, and their deaths true, and their spirits free of any body, is this truly their last tale?

Would You Know More...?


	2. Apocalypsis, Book Two

Apocalypsis  
Book Two  
by Rob Morris

You Listener. Know you well, that previously, when we spoke of the many tales of The Highlander, a friend was known again, and so it was for a fiend, and answers to elder riddles were found, and the Watcher queried as to many things. Vengeance was sworn by many, but no head was had by any -for that was merely a first part, when heads are not as loose, and this is known. A time near past and a time long past were invoked, and that Highlander knew the company of a good woman of shadows and secrets. Aye, and The Oldest spoke much of how he is The Oldest, for that is what The Oldest does.

What say you? My tale is a poor one? Oh, you cry, it is a tale told to you near one hundred times before? Sit down, I say! For you know not this tale, and these Revelations are not what you have known, as well. Why, I vouchsafe that this telling will eclipse the tale of the two Highlanders and the giant. I vouchsafe that you will forget the schemes of that vile Hunter, kinsman to the Watcher. And the less said of that horrid singer, the better, for his treachery was not so fiendish as his baritone--and this was before he was injured, let it be said.

Remember you the four mounted gods? If not, then you soon shall, and like it not one wit. You have asked. Now, at last, you will know more. Should you have asked?

The Ukraine

And as they rode, those two once-gods felt by turns less godlike, as they went.

"I think that I am overmade as a cosmopolitan. Even Death knows aches, I fear. Our passage has sore worn upon me, and it has drained my vital energies."

"And mine, I should think. For two suns, we rode as pinioned gods, though why even the lowest of gods, and we are not that, should gladly suffer those pale sugared legumes is not in my ken. Now, we ride these poor things two suns more, and crook-back Richard would rather yield his kingdom up than ride such fragile fiends!"

"Ah, you Pestilence. For am I not your brother, whom you loved and hated so well, that wants, needs and desires drove you and your bodkin straight back into my bosom?"

"Then mark me well, Death-that-was. For I love nothing so well as to endure such pointless strife that gains me aught."

But perhaps as Pestilence was made to expect, Death knew calming words.

"I say thee nay, Bold Pestilence. He is about, and this is all his place. But your aspect sours my joy. What worth, then, does my brother place in my given word?"

"Why, brother, I assign to your word the same worth and value it has always had, when only my wits were about me. Yet I tremble, now, as surely as others trembled, when the nascent thunder of my six feet began their piecemeal journey to your realms, Methos. Since the victory of the Nazarene, and since his angel cast me past the Rhinelands, this day I have known, as I waked, as I slept, as I despaired, and as I rejoiced. As I joined in unfinished cosmic battle with that Giant of the Russian Steppes, and as I joined in comic battle with that simple army clerk of Iowan mien. And he had better breath than the Kurgan."

An odd turn of thought struck at that Methos, and this he shared with his Kronos.

"How I laugh now, Brother! Those men of hoops and leaps, led by the Air Jordan, are called the men of dreams and aspirations, and they walk with kings, rabbits and ducks. But we who have bloodied well the River Jordan are the dreams that they have all forgotten."

As both knew, these words had power, even over a wise one that knew much better than to be lead.

"And we are the dreams that they shall do well to remember, Methos, and we offer them no choice in these matters, as the four mounted gods are all once again. It shall be as it was, and as it is now, though without art or glamour. We shall be given our tribute, and we are long past due for that."

That Methos merely shrugged, and a grin creased him, and it was a grin that Kronos welcomed, even if he did not trust it at all.

"Kronos, did you not know that it is wrong to take what is offered you freely? The best is only found for those times when you take that which they will not yield, nor ever surrender, while they yet live. What worth is a king's crown if he removes it, and offers it on pillow? You know how it must be taken."

How far then may man or god be taken, if this is all their goal, that is, to be taken?

"Yes! For these are the words of my brother, and they are words I have longed to hear, and thought blinked out by the light over David's City. But Ho! Is that War itself I hear breaking cedars to splinters? And is it that Silas that I see wielding an axe, such as I carried with me to Iceland, given as a boon to Norsemen who thought me Thor?"

"Remember well how much time has passed, brother. That Silas was ne'er all that sharp, as well. We may be as dreams or less to him."

That Methos remained ever a cagey one, trapping that goal-ridden Pestilence in unasked questions, and answers freely proffered.

"Did Prometheus grow vague, recalling that he was as a Titan? Has Morningstar, despite his scars and burns, forgotten the Mountain from which he fell? War will know his own true aspect, and in this he has no more option than do we."

"Yet Prometheus caught and ate that old bird, and joyed after that he had blessed all with fire. That Lucifer chiefly keeps to his miserable places, it is known. Perhaps this being all Silas place, he will not wish to know more."

Was that Kronos truly lead? Or was he running, now, and did he care at all, except that the pendulum was back his way, at least in seeming?

"He will. Let the salt he tastes come not from his own brow, but from kilohectares of split heads and spilt blood. Let the brains he burdens fall out of once-living skulls. Let him warm himself not by a meager circle of stones, but by a globe aflame. I vouch safe that he will wish our company. Had I a soul, I would wager it gladly on such a game of pitch and toss."

Now, that giant, that Silas, was made as any other of his like, and his nerves were set afire, and his sinews turned to steel, and this was the steel of a sprung trap. That trap cast away that axe, but did that poor dull axe fear Pestilence and fear Death? If so, then this was a very wise axe, and it was smarter than most men. It passed between them, and sought not ball lightning, but wood that it found safe purchase in. But this axe would be forgot, as that Silas looked upon the two halted riders, and he would make them three again, and this joyed all but the joyless, which is to say Methos.

"Oh, are these my Brothers True, whole and not slain? Methos, the plotter? Kronos, the night's own master? Oh, tell me true, and whisper when you do  
for they'll swear you lied!"

That Kronos felt ecstasy at this viewing, and was made to shout.

"No, you Silas, for why would I whisper?! Methos, when we do not whisper, what thing should we tell them, those quaking masses yearning to breathe our  
word, and our law?!"

That Methos regained his air from that mountainous Silas' tender grip, and spoke what was in his heart, at that time, and this was believed by all but one.

"Tell Them The Horsemen Are Returned!"

Bucharest, Romania

All about the madhouse, men and women and children were given to cry out, and these lost ones could prove a grave peril, if only let loose among others. Yet as any wise man would know, the one who shrieked never in pain, yet always in joy, was the peril among perils. A very wise man sought his release, now, though to what release of his own none could yet say.

"You men seek that fiend, that Evan Caspari? Well, you may not have him. This boon is neither meet nor fit, and you will wait long to gain an unlikely goal to your strange quest."

That Methos spoke, for none would gainsay that words were all his art, when words were needed.

"We would away with him, aye, and away with all speed as we go. You will bring this about."

"No sir. Again I decry your impossible goal, which is both unlikely and strange."

That Kronos had once chosen twixt cowards that ran and clownish oafs that sought to bargain with the mounted gods. He decided well that he loved all cowards, for who wants to be dead? This was within his ken. Outside his ken and beneath all his contempt were the weighers of scales, and counters of coins and paper. Yet still he had that paper, and he gave up that paper, and he made use of that paper.

"Benjamin Franklin, flyer of kites, father of children, printer of books, and a truly humorous man of good wit. His homeland honors him with these smallish portraits I have kept well in this seal. By my quick count, I now present you, Keeper Of The Madhouse, with such portraits as make up two-hundred, and then fifty again. Pray tell me, you Keeper, does this make of our goal a likely one, and our quest less strange?"

The Keeper kept those portraits of that man of Bonhomme Richard, and his aspect shifted, that one last time.

"Oh, sirs! My every apology. For Doctor Franklin has always spoken so well, and this is known. Come, I shall release that poor soul, that Caspari, unto you all. But why would fine gentlemen of note as you are seek such a wretch? Know you well that he is not merely a stone killer but a flayer and eater of the flesh of humans, and some of those were kept in parts that were well chilled."

That Kronos heard a cry he knew well.

"Why, we shall make of him an honest man, and teach him an honest trade, such as he once knew. His contribution to society shall be notable and not easily forgotten."

Silas' largish grin had turned to grimace, and he tasked that keeper with a query.

"He is as we have always known him. Keeper, why was he not put down as one would a mad and rabid dog that foamed and ripped?"

"Oh, we are not barbarians now, sir, but civilized men, and bound by laws. Execution would not be meet or right, and hardly humane."

That Methos saw the dank dungeon where the worst ones were kept, and it was so vile, that a look merely flitted twixt he and that Kronos, and they vowed their fallen enemies would know a quick death, and not such a fetid place. No, they would see the sun and the stars, as their eyes last closed.

"Oh, we are lost, and we are damned, and we are done! That one of dread, Herald of Him Of Babel, Who Is In Turn Herald Of Three Of Skulls, has surely come around at last! That day of wrath, as in the past!"

As this madskull was led off to know stick and steel, the Keeper paid him almost no mind or concern.

"Pay no heed of that one, you fine gentlemen. He is as a stopped clock, stopped now for a score and half of a score."

That Kronos looked back once, and then full at the Keeper, and it was a gaze the corrupt jailor would not forget.

"But surely, you Keeper, you know that which is said of the accuracy of stopped clocks."

As the sense of another overtook him, that Methos looked about anew at the squalor, and was given to speak.

"Oh, you Keepers! Why, I think that you are nearly as humane as we ourselves have been known to allow. Perhaps even half again!"

If that Keeper sensed the ill intent of these words, the swiftness of the moment robbed him of all vain retorts. The Maddest saw the Fiercest, and he saw The Oldest, and this time, his howls were all words.

"YOU ARE MY BROTHERS!"

As for the sword of Pestilence through the chains of Famine, so for Caspian upon the throat of the Keeper, and this was not for long at all.

"Oh, aid me now, you fine gentlemen, else I am all undone!"

Yet that Kronos merely watched his artistic brother at work, after too long a season lain fallow and rotten.

"You seek aid, oh Keeper? Then ask aid of your last ally, Benjamin Franklin. Or should I keep that statesman's portrait? Should I save it for a rainy day? Yes, I think that I should. For you will not spend it, I think."

Was the Maddest now to turn on The Oldest? This surely seemed so, as he cried out, and pointed as he did at that Methos.

"You Death! Caspian begs you to stay your grim gait. For I seek living meal."

Once-Death saw the hardy bug that was known to shrug off all the poisons of man popped into a bottomless gullet of a yet skinny man, and he liked this sight not at all. That Kronos saw much wit in this, but pointed the freed madman away, and away.

"You who were Famine. Come now, and make a single bug out of a corrupt and dying world that we shall push all over. Then you may make to meal the Earth entire."

They left that awful place, and yet Methos tarried and did linger, as a note he left, and this was a note to be found out.

"Come now, You Highlander. Come and find us, though to what end, I could not say in any wise. The winner, as the loser, is not yet chosen by me. Yet you shall be among those that Death picks out, to fight that last fight."

DAWSON'S TAVERN

A man is not his kin, and this is known. The Watcher was no more the fallen Hunter than he was one of his fellows who sought those young girls, stakes in hand and the bane of nightkinders. Dawson was Dawson, leg or legless, doubter or steadfast, hostage or hero true. And he opened those books that had no paper that bespoke persons who did not exist, this to a man he should not know at all.

"You Highlander. Know you and your woman with you, that these other lesser fiends who were called Horsemen, are surely passed into dust. Were they made as I, this time would be long past. Were they made as nightkind, wood would have met their ribs. Being as you are made, they tasted steel on their dull tongues, and that was that. Seek them no more, I say."

Macleod would yet seek them, and he would seek their emptied skulls and backbone segments with no let at all, but to dry his lady's tears.

"The Two are yet Quick, and not Quickenings. Is it then so vast a leap to ask if so for the Two, then so for all The Horsemen as well? True Fiend and Accused Friend have walked often in names and lives that were teasing puzzles to be ciphered, and riddles to be broken, with dry cryptic hints of what was contained in what now is."

The Lady Of The Voice was also the very soul of impatience. The haste that did make her see a betraying learner as a millennial demon now pushed her pretty voice to cry out.

"We will seek Pestilence. Pestilence is yet quick, and he is slippery with that. That Pestilence endures and that Death stands with him should be all our sight."

"Lady Cassandra is my elder, and well-beloved of me. But say, can she see aught but The Two alone? What place and what haunt and at what hour would you have us find they who are so crafty? They are again The Two. If they may be again The Four, then I daresay that this will be all their sight."

The Watcher drew these allies back again, and this was his wont.

"Let not this humble tavern-keeper be set aside without exposing those harshest truths first. Information is gathered by scattering, and this is known. These two were of the northlands, even when North was just called Cold. They were men, though not in their acts. And here are such as these whose first death is lost to books, and to talk. Now again, what men are called for Silas and Caspian, at least for those with eyes to look aside?"

His art lessened not one wit for the use of silicon and lightning, that Watcher nodded in apparent knowing.

"Here is a fiend, and a vile butcher. He is locked away in the lands once held by Tepes and Stalin, only he is no defender, true or false. Lady Cassandra, will you swear an oath at this viewing?"

And she saw that digital capture, which could in fact capture nothing at all of the thing she saw before her, and of the memories stirred by those bared teeth.

"The Watcher is kind, and he has given us much. Highlander, you spoke truth. But let us away, and away, and when it is asked anew whether those Four are yet quick, let us be quicker still with our retort."

And in that place, for what is time to those who do not die as we, neither Lady nor Highlander found that gulping fiend. The second jailer spoke grimly of the fate of her first.

"Oh, you late visitors. For that fiend and butcher, who is called Evan Caspari, has awayed and as he walked, he wholly destroyed the goodly, incorruptible, sainted man who ruled this last best hope of wretched humanity. Ask not of early visitors for such a demon. For they are not known here, and like not known at all to such as I."

"Then, you good lady, I shall sure away, and the Highlander with me."

Yet the Highlander would not be put off, as any would know, and as knew better than most The Oldest.

"Hie us now, Lady Cass, to the pit that kept that which was Famine not well enough at all, nor at all was he held fast in it."

"Why, You Highlander? The Two Are The Three Again. Let us seek the blood from their necks, and have aught more to do with this place of reeking and madness made so epidemic, it seems the whole of the world."

"Ask you why? Why, then, look you to espy. For what large dusty tomes told us not at all, this meager book which admonishes to close before striking bids us seek the vineyards near the town proper of Bordeaux, and to room at De Seze. The Oldest wished us to find it, and thereby find him. He is all our ally, and I have proven this."

But the lady who went where she would and permitted unclad glimpses when she would was once made a slave, roughly, and these thoughts are not quick banished.

"It is Death who left it, not your fabled Oldest, this gentle thing I have never glimpsed. Aye, he lures us to the lands of Hugh Capet, and of Louis De La Sol. But he means to make of you Louis Seize and me Marie Antoinette. He is all our worst fiend, and I have proven this."

That Highlander began to guide them both, and yet his nod was a regretful one.

"My lady speaks of traps, and we as lambs to be sheared and butchered. Nay, I say. We are as the rabbit, chomping merrily pon carrot, knowing that the trap must be tripped, or aught is learned. If help The Oldest has called down, he shall know help. If Hell, why then, he shall see Hell."

Yet when the pair made for that ciphered place, it surely seemed that the Highlander was greatly foolish, and the lady properly correct.

"Oh, Highlander! Why, then, seek we bread crumbs, when it is the wolf we hunt? This place is not where Death would meet us, but where he would keep us well, till swords sail through the necks you have in your way proffered up to them. He is the liar, and more he is the lie himself. Death is Death, and is not your ally or your great helpmeet. What he assembles anew is a thing seen not by men of this age, nor yours, nor even that of Tak Ne, who was called also Ramirez. Those hooves shall kick apart your world, all while you wait on a friend you do not have, and more, have not ever had. You seek to cleave Pestilence and leave Death standing. Fool! Would you duel with me, and take only my heart, knowing well I may grow another, so long as I should keep my living head?"

In a great rage, the Highlander cried out.

"Stand away, woman of words, aye, as many words as Pestilence spouts and spews. If Pestilence is destroyed, then Death becomes The Oldest, and the Oldest is my boon companion in a war with the darkest powers. And hear the words of one who was Kronos to the sons of England, when Bonnie Charlie fell to the mud. Revenge is a poor eraser, of truth and of memories. If you would erase the stain of he who was once Death, why then your choice is done. Vengeance is mine, sayeth The Lord. But Life he grants us as ours, and to ours more life than some. Let Life swallow Death. Let only your living defeat the fiend Methos was."

His grip was firm and strong, and he held her fast. But Lady Cass knew well in her own heart, where truths for one and one alone are held fast, that the memories were far stronger than Witch, Highlander, or Horseman. She thought them realer than she herself, and by this thought, they were this, and this is all that is required for stealing vengeance rights from the throne of The One.

Abandoned Submarine Base

BOURDEAUX

Where underboats once made their way, the overlords of history now walked, and looked about. Was it truly most curious that the most curious of all was wrongly dullarded War? For he most amusedly asked what any man might well ask, if they but saw this odd remove.

"Brother Death? Is this place meant to be your poorly lit dungeons of the damned dead? Is this place meant to be the acidic innards of Brother Famine's sick belly? For it is not meant to be mine, and I am fair certain of this."

Death looked up from a book which had the aspect of Testaments, but was surely not so, in the sight of Pestilence, scourge of that book's One True.

"Brother War should think of Monmouth, and Troyes, and Mallory, and Tennyson, White, Boorman and Python. Kronos would be Arthur, a man he would have cleaved gladly. Heh. For I suppose then I must find a way to be his Lancelot, this in all things."

"War knows not of this Arthur, of tables rounded that cause meals to slip off, and of weapons that wait on those tables instead of bread. Oh, where are the apples, and the horses we shall feed those apples to, and the stables in which our horses will rest?"

That Famine knew great heaps of laughter, to hear War speak so, yet War laughed not at all.

"What then is War good for? Nothing, and let it be said anew, Nothing. In what tree dwelt you, and in what cave did you squat, as men counted ten by twenty score? They say the lights are bright on Broadway, but those who see mounted bemasked riders shall think us very dim clowns indeed. Oh, and are not clowns fellows to geekly feasters pon bat and rat? What say you that War's caged mouse is meal stead' of Mickey? Horses and stables. Tsk. Tis a pity and a misfortune and a detriment to our society that wily Famine was given under keyed doors, when War's brains are softer and greatly putrid, and this is known. And I have said that this is known. "

With that War took to axe, and Famine to sword, and this clashing and gnashing went forward as Death, who was also The Oldest, read of a book proper bound and held, and this was his world as his brothers sought to give the other to his cold embrace.

"Hear me, O Famine! I say Hear Me, O Famine! War knows none of your petty strictures. If horseback we seek, we shall not be gainsayed in this quest. The Mounted Gods ride in any place that we espy. The foodstuffs we want are in our mouths. The women we desire do aught save service us. The sun rises, for we will it, and if we but will it, so shall it rise in the west. And what of clowns? If they think us clowns, let them but stare at our juggled balls, and go then witless as they see that these are truly their own heads. Then, there shall cease all talk of merrymaking, and of circuses. And let it be said that if Famine dines of mouse, then it is War who after will dine of Famine. You were well locked away, and that place was not low enough, I think, to be worthy of my brother. Then, though, I fear there is no place such as you will soon seek, when my sword finds its mark, and that is your chicken's neck."

Yet this feud was made quick work of, and blade and axe made to strike not neck but ground. Bold Pestilence lashed out mightily and with great rage, gainst' the battlers.

"Oh, you fiends! As for a mere girl's cloak, think you not for your own necks? Though the foolish world raises arms and armies to stay our mighty hand, ne'er shall we do so in sight of each other. Your blades may drink oceans of blood, yet may never know one another's, and this is forbidden. What says Death on this sorry matter?"

"Why, Death only speaks in the shadow of Pestilence, my brother. As the Arthur I read of may not lie with his sister, and as his first knight may not lie with his queen, and his son may not seek to overthrow him, so may we each not take arms gainst the other. And this is known."

Emboldened by sugary words that would yet rot his teeth, Pestilence grabbed each Mounted God up in turn, and stood them up around the table, which, as War had proclaimed, was not primed for decent feasting. Their arms outstretched, he clasped them as one arm, seeking to choke infinity.

"We Four leap from the summit of man's petty imagination, and we wallow in the pit of his nightmares. We are The Mounted Gods. Gainst our measure, who is Adolf, but an art student with Chaplin's looks yet no hilarity at all? Gainst our gait, who is Genghis, but a vaulter of walls? Gainst our terror, how dare Atilla shout that he was The Scourge Of The One? Let it never be forgot that no band, whether proselytizers from Galilee, Vikings of The Norseland, Brownshirts Of Berlin or Minstrels of Liverpool have ever rocked the Earth as we do, merely by our Gathering, and that this shall displace and make small that other gathering, which fools always proclaim is nigh. We are crueler and more feared than Morningstar, and aye, more feared than the master he shook off. These are the words of Pestilence. These are the words of Kronos--Master Of The Night, and Leader True Of The Mounted Gods!"

Ever more was this his time, and his place within it, and this was all the mind of Pestilence, and this like as not dwelt only there.

"Ho, you Mounted Gods! War asks of our swords, and of our axes, and of our horses? Pestilence will not mock him in this. Instead, I ask, where are the blades that split the atom? Where is the axe that cleaves the bitterest fruits from the double spiral of life itself? Where is the horse with power now to climb unto the heavens, and spray down what such as we will see spread about?"

Whether Death or The Oldest, he saw War's confused mien.

"While your axe made wood, sweet War, men bit into many apples, such as we had bid him not ever do. Two men with keys may unlock seals well beyond the seven of legend. If so this floating egg were not cracked outright, the children of Adam would for uncounted cycles envy those who had the good fortune to meet my embrace."

Pestilence spread wide his arms with a flourish wholly untoward, but such was his untrammeled joy. Before them was a place of glass containers, and of chittering monks, seeking bananas and peanuts and shiny things, but there were none in that place. No, there were no bright things at all, in that place where the world was to be undone.

"Hear me, you Pestilence. Famine is apt to proffer his regrets to War, pon viewing this. War is not at all softened in brain, for at least he would bring an axe to battle with. You would have us fight with monkeys. Pray tell me, is Methos now Davy Jones, and which of us will be called for Peter Tork?! Famine begs that you say this is not so."

"Death would not be Davy, and so begs with Pestilence as does Famine, else War is made to wear a skicap."

Pestilence allowed for such talk, for this was surely his day, and that day was as no other.

"You Mounted Gods speak of false musicians, when we shall soon be playing with the horns of Heimdall and Gabriel. But those horns shall be purchased by the labors of Einstein, and of Pasteur. For it is their thoughts that remade the world, and it is their works in which we shall remake it yet again. These monkeys are but jars, vessels into which I breathe my truest distillation. Behold, the new destroyer! It is but liquid to look upon. It is nameless, and yet so was once the crawling thing that reduces a man to helplessness, that he may not fight off even a cold. It is Pestilence, and now behold my mighty hand, as I raise through my surrogate the mighty specters of fear and savage delirium. It is made as I, and that is to say, it may not be unmade by men. As before, so now, and so after, and thus it shall ever be, all will know of our ride, though not a hoof is raised. The End Of Days these paltry men seek, and who shall deliver it unto them? Why, it is we. And it is done. Watch, I craft this thing's frame. Watch, I call up meager treasure to push this thing of ours forward. Watch, I have found Death anew, and he shall say how men will once more fear the reaper, and make old Charon a busy fellow once more."

Death came to the sink, and water he placed in a smallish glass. This glass he stirred, and then held it high, as though a banner.

"In parks are fountains. A vessel shatters by force, and it is spread in that manner. All near will breathe of it, and then they will be no more."

Pestilence waited for words that did not come, and grew to have no patience with poor humor.

"Pour my virus then, back into that same sink, and let it go all to waste. For who will be slain in the story you tell, Death? Not enough. Better that I had not found you at all."

Famine laughed anew, and this seemed sure his wont.

"Men will avoid fountains, and such will be our legacy. Death makes me afraid, as I have not been since days untold. My fear causes me to quiver. All, pray--watch Famine as he quivers."

Death pointed about him, and his face held back quiet rage, to be so mocked.

"Any fool may slay, and any and every fool has. But who is noticed? Bloody Jack is noticed. Zodiac is noticed. We were noticed, and noticed we will be again. Think of how the Greek masters made notice. But why speak I of Greeks, to those usual suspects who do not know the cinematic origins of 'the usual suspects'? The fountain is overture. A public pool is the dimming of the lights. Our first act shall shatter the audience, for the water they sip has been met at its source by a single drop of the Pestilence. Two drops will hit the heights. Then O, what heights will be hit. Our show, which began so small, will in due time, bring the house down, when there is no one at all left to applaud it. That will leave a short intermission, and a second act carried out upon lakes and rivers and oceans. All by the shock waves carried forward by the merest stamping of my foot."

Death and Pestilence smiled as one, though with greatly differing cause.

"Pestilence bows before Death in this thing. It has been sorely long since I viewed his art, and it is all my wonder. Brothers, it has begun, and it begins this very eve. We shall do as Death bids, and the old is new. These Are The Words Of Pestilence. These Are The Words Of Kronos--Master Of The Night!"

As it was even at Herod's Slaughter, the beefy hands of War were gentled by those wee small things that chitter and are merely happy to be fed, and in their ken is aught of prizes, swords or worlds ending. Death, who was also the Oldest, seemed of a grim mien, and War could scarce turn away from such a sight.

"You Death? Where is your joy, at our turning together once more? So pleased am I, the face of Famine is near to pleasing for me, or at least it does not make me feel quick for my scabbard."

Death looked on at the scene of man and monkey, and made a labor of offering his smile, yet labor it was, and labor it surely seemed.

"Greatly is Death pleased, you War. Death merely thinks thoughts of himself, perhaps to a man, perhaps to a woman, perhaps yet to a world, and even perhaps to the gods themselves. Fear not of Death's affection for War. Let it be said that of his brothers, that Death loved War best of all."

A laugh, great and full of throat and esophagus, rang through the halls of that wicked place, so it seemed less wicked as a certainty.

"Oh, I think that I am surely the soft-brained thing of Famine's taunts! For a body to grow in concern over deep thoughts by Death, when this is what Death does, and this is known. And this was ever so. Yet I may be remiss in my dismissal. It is well and meet and proper that this thing should be all the same. For we no longer ride, but piddle poison into ponds, to hear you tell it. Where is my axe? Where are my foes? Oh, pray you, brother. Pray you that this little nameless spew that Pestilence holds as his own lost child, that Little-Booted Roman Imperator, is all greenish glow and no venom at all."

Death spoke as one who had seen a play's end, yet would not speak upon it directly.

"Sweet War will soon now know his axe. Sweet War will drink deeply of the eyes of his truest enemy. As a river flows and seeks greater waters, some matters may not readily be put aside. Such is it for the work of Pestilence, if it is but released any at all. But I think in wonder at the hundred score we have managed with a want of carnage. But I gasp in wonder at the hundred score we have managed without crafting terror. And I stand in wonder at the hundred score we have known power over only ourselves, alone."

"Death speaks for War in this thing! For my wonder is also at how such as we endured in such a state. Yet endure we have, and endure we will, and our strength will shatter the firmament and the heavens above, and these words are known well to Death, being first his own. The large things will be all ours again. Pray, will bold Pestilence allow me a small thing, a boon? I crave of him only this small pet."

Death labored greatly then, and his smile seemed truer then, and his hand upon the shoulder of War seemed truer than true, as answer he gave up.

"Let it be said that of his brothers, that Death loved War best of all."

Death departed the dank dim place, and this oath would he swear one last time, ere all was done.

In their place of small comforts, Highlander and Lady played games of word, yet this game rivaled the game that all immortals play, for its ferocity and deadly earnest.

"You Highlander. Say to your lady that you will slay Methos, away and away."

"You Lady, my Cassandra. Is it fit or meet that Methos should die?"

"You Highlander. Tell true to your lady that you can slay The Oldest, and end his five millennia of deceit and lies."

"You Lady, my Cassandra. I will do as I must, and if this I must do, then it is so, and it is done."

"You Highlander. Swear loudly and with spirit to your lady that upon your sword, Cold Death itself will die."

"You Cassandra. I say like as not, The Oldest is all our hidden ally. What say you?"

"You Highlander. I say this to your notion, and I say thee nay, and what is more, I say thee never!"

There came a message, and though it was that The Highlander made no show of any happenstance, Lady Cassandra took up anew a game of oaths.

"You Highlander. Say to me that such was not the message of Methos."

"You Lady. I say it was a message of smallish, and not large matters at all."

"You Highlander. Tell me true that such was not the practiced lies of The Oldest, meant to entrap your good but foolish heart."

"You Lady. I tell you true that my credit has been made a question of. Doubtless that Redstone, my overly modern learner or my Lady Raven have made good use of it, and this has imperiled me."

"You Highlander. Swear to your Lady that where you go, that you do not answer the call Of Death."

"You Lady. I answer only my own call, and ask only that as I am he who leaves, so shall it be that you should be she who stays. And I must insist that this be so."

The Oldest waited on Holy Ground, and in that place did the Highlander, who had held his tongue around his lady, seek out Death's presence, if not  
his company.

"Oh, You Oldest Of All. Or should I in fact call you Death? Or should I in fact call you Adversary and Accuser, Satan himself, the liar who said he knew of no Cassandra, and no Horsemen? My trust I fear was sorely misplaced, and it was placed with a destroyer of innocents, slain for their crumbs and aught else! Will you now speak of wicked kings and the skulls of subjects, to hide away your own wickedness? What manner of being speaks to the student of Connor Macleod?"

The Oldest-Also-Death would not meet that withering gaze. But he would meet words with words.

"You Highlander. Know that if you counted all your years, and added them to those of your rasp-voiced teacher, you could yet not hope to add up all that I have been. You ask why I would harshly deceive such a one as you. Better to ask, why would I yield up harsh truth to one such as you. Already you look at The Oldest and see only Death. Yet know the roughness of that world was ours, and we were not its children, but its fathers. Such power of choice is basest metal now, yet then was it purest gold, and we held all coin in our purses. I think that you will ask anew of your lady and her tiny village. You call the death of her folk and the fiery cleansing of her place for my betrayal. Yet you know not of my truest betrayal."

"Then, You Oldest, the younger of two Highlanders would yet know more."

The Bronze Age

The Mounted Gods had reaped a bounty of flesh, and it was all soft, so-pretty, tender flesh. The sword of Pestilence raised many skirts, and cut away others, and this lead him to think of the use of other swords.

"Death! I say to my brother, good sport and good hunt, and a goodly feast will surely follow, one of melons, peaches, and skins peeled back. What fruit is chosen of Death, and shall he have this fruit drink of him?"

The wretches before Pestilence were not yet bound, and they were also yet not as beauteous as the adorned slave that held mead for Death, and Death alone. Pestilence saw her smile, and knew well that such smiling was his brother's province.

"Pestilence, I choose no fruit on this day. The hunt alone, brother, drips pon my lips, and it has been sweet. This harvest is all to Pestilence, fruits and meats alike. I am attended to by our quarrelsome girl, now wholly my thing. Ee'n now, she sees that I am wearied, and bears my cup as she knows she must. There were times once when she was all of a rebel's stand, and I would break that rebellion by hand alone. Those times are done. Are there yet other endings about us?"

Gaze was met with gaze, and what did brother see in brother as Death gained back his tent? Was it, as the comical constable was given to say, a small thing which then and there must needs be nipped in the bud, ere it grows up the flower of change?

Inside Methos's tent, Cassandra waits for him, smiling. She gives him a cup of something to drink, and follows him as he walks by and sits down. He barely acknowledges her, but when he says something about the drink being good she tells him that she cooled it in the river for him. She takes a cloth and starts wiping his hands, then his face. He turns to her and lifts a hand to touch her cheek, but they both turn as Kronos walks in.

"You girl. For my place is neat and kempt."

That Cassandra blushed and breathed anew, for her Lord Death was in her well pleased.

"My Lord. It is only meet and fit that Death should not be assaulted by petty clutter."

"You girl. For my things are all in sight, that I may know and know of them."

"My Lord. Since I am by Death's decree the only thing of yours given life, motion, brains and vitality, it is given that I should attend to those things, my brother the blanket, my sister the water-pan, and your cloaks, which are also my sweet siblings."

"You Girl. You are no sibling to the mere cloth you take across my face and hands. Yours is not the lot of the water you use. You are more to me than the cooled drink you placed in the chill waters. The cheek I caress is the most treasured of my treasures."

The prayers of the supplicant were answered by her god, and she closed those pretty eyes in ecstasy.

"My Lord. Shall I then lay still pon my back, or still pon my stomach? I swear that I shall not abuse the power of speech you in grace conferred unto me."

"You Girl. My Woman. You shall so abuse it, as in pleasure you moan. And you shall only be beaten and whipped if you do not move, and respond to my touches with your own. Death has been your harsh taker of life, and your cruel giver of life. But Death will be release for you this night, and release will you grant unto Death."

What was the game of the Oldest, that Death, in this matter? Was he made by his slave into a man, and a man who wants that woman he wants, and not as a slave? Did he wish to then earn the heart and head he owned already as sandals? This answer wil not be found, for the wind found the tent, and the wind bore on its wings Pestilence himself.

"Ho, Brother! From that wretched little thing you have raised up one who is as us, or near to like. Succulent fruit she is, as perfect as this fruit she picks for you alone, and as is made more perfect still by this place she keeps for you."

Death knew his imperilment, and with two fingers placed pon her forehead, he pushed that girl all away, and pon her back.

"She is to me as that cloth as I have bid her wipe my hands and face. Her brother is my blanket, and her sister is my water-pan. Why, mere moments agone, she queried as to whether my pleasure was her front or her back, and how still should she remain? She is a girl, and girls we have, and girls may we gain at our whimsy. She is that which bears my mead, and so it is cold and full, why should I fret upon her name or her face?"

That Pestilence grinned widely, and seized up the girl who was as nothing to the one who treasured her best of all.

"My brother speaks pearls of greatest wisdom, and this is known. As for a cloak, as for a horse, so for her favors. You Girl. As for Death, so for Pestilence."

That girl made her stand, for she had but one god, and would hold no other before him.

"My Lord Death. I was slain by you, and am yours. I was birthed again by you, and am yours. Though offered no choice, I would be yours if given one. Pray let me render unto Death that which is uniquely his."

Death turned away, and did not watch his treasure removed.

"I will not tell you to go with my brother. For what is Death belongs also to Pestilence, and aye, to Famine and to War as well. And if they seize a grain of sand from beneath me, will I strike my brothers' down over such a matter? Should I even speak, when I have so very many grains of sand?"

To the tent of Pestilence the two went, and Death recounted without sight what would come to pass, and this was soon so.

"My brother strikes at her, and these blows are my charge, for I allowed him to know the girl had worth to me. She cries, and Pestilence vows lustily to give her true cause to cry out. The girl at last relents, and vows that she will give Pestilence the due she wished to give Death. You Pestilence. Do you fancy the girl? Is it my softness you truly fear, or have you wondered, as men are apt, why it is a broken slave chooses her killer, and the taker of her honor and her freedom? Do you ask why she craves Cold Death and eschews Bold Pestilence? For if things must be just so for Pestilence to know joy, than in this I know how Pestilence may be duped, and perhaps yet brought low."

Death winced, at a cry of pain from one who did not offer cries of pain.

"Oh, that girl has brought my brother low, and she leaves, she leaves forever, for Pestilence has received the due she wishes to give me, for my betrayal. And betrayer I am, for a slave is still promised protection, and mine I withdrew. So having failed you, Cassandra, your name and your freedom I yield back. You will need these both, when you find your Gods were demons, and that new life was not granted you by death. How many of your lives will that harsh desert claim? And will you ever remember that moment you were less my slave than my woman? No, I fear. The Desert will bake away any of the man you knew so briefly. I am alone, but you are free, and this must needs suffice. So suffice it shall."

Never so great a rage held Pestilence in his heart, for though setback, and aye e'en defeat had he known, ne'er had such emerged from the hand of one so low to him. Came he hot from his hellish tent, crying out a god's own rage.

"Death! Our slave has dared rise up 'gainst me. She must needs be found, and her effrontery punished so that Sisyphus and Ixion stare in sympathy at her plight, so horrid will it be."

Death was ever crafty, and in his brother's rage, did steal away the mask of Pestilence.

"Why, brother? Did she truly wound you? Meant she aught to you? Of course she did not. Of course she does not. She is as nothing, save the desert sands, and to those has she returned. I will not waste my godly gaze to seek a grain of sand. And you, Pestilence?"

Trapped in a corner fashioned all with himself, bold Pestilence was forced to rein in his marvelous ragings. Thus did Death learn that this could be done, and Death never does unlearn a lesson, and this is known.

"Aye, my brother. What a waste to pursue a mere handful of dust."

But Pestilence was never long trapped, even when that trap was wrought by both Death and Pestilence.

"And but think. Soonways, shall she discover that her life is her own, and she needs not Death to shake off his grasp. Oh, how our godly names will be cursed! What sport, then, as we laugh and laugh at what she must soon know certain. How loudly will she curse you, Brother?"

"You Pestilence. Cassandra shall always curse the name of Death, first and worst of all. And she shall curse it a thousand times daily, you Pestilence. And she shall curse it a thousand times."

And Death spoke these words as though of new sandals cut too low on one small corner.

Yet who can know the heart of Death? Who can know the Heart Of The Oldest? Not Kronos, that Pestilence. Not Duncan, That Highlander. Is it even yet known to Methos, that Oldest? Can Death die, yet never truly know Death?

Present Day

In the past, it is ever night, as we poor things reach graspingly for the previous day. So it is that merest talk of the past may consume the whole of the day, ere even Immortals glance for sun or moon. The Oldest showed tinges of what some call shame, but like as not had naught to do with Death, as his tale came round again.

"And could I have gasped up that grain of sand, and broken her to me anew? Aye, I will vouchsafe such a thing. Yet such a grasp would have shattered my treasure, as Pestilence would then learn certain of her worth to me. I see her yet now, as the sun claimed her in endless circles, days becoming moons, ere she found that simple small place like the one she had known. The one burned away by all of us. Yet still she walked, and she would have no let in this. Her rage as she knew certain that her life was ever her own carried her well from War. Her empty and emptied stomach twisted and pulled and tugged upon her, but in this fast she would be away and away from Famine. The heat burned as must have Morningstar, yet could she have gazed upon that burning orb, boiling away her skin and hair, and not praised it ad astra, for little more than it was not the gaze of Pestilence? Did she find water where there was none, drinking deeply of the joy that said she no longer slept in the bosom of Death? Though I am not her, I feel safe that I may vouchsafe this as well."

That Highlander sought the truth's heart, if such even existed in that time, and in that company.

"Then the Oldest will swear true to me that he and Pestilence are done. We two will move against all his schemes, as did we when that singer sought to make our kind known. Though I shall not credit that four poor mounties may hold in their hands a globe. And speak not to me of mere survival, for what value has our endurance, if Pestilence is yet virulent?"

That Death moved as though in a great fury, and struck well that Highlander cross his unguarded face.

"Hear Me, you beardless boy! Grab up your vengeful lady, and pray get you gone from this place and what shall most certainly begin here. I may not stand against Pestilence, and you may not stand against Pestilence, and this world and all its works shall fall to him. Aye, it is so that the Mounted Gods shall ride no more on horseback. Nay, you fool. Famine shall ride in harvests that are not, for no cause save known to four. War shall ride in trucks laden with automatic weapons, sent into those places that need them not at all, with good soldiers whispering of four truck drivers shot scores of times. Pestilence awaits in a small fount, and the Highlander would do well to rip him all away, and this sheet shall say how this may be so."

That Highlander read well of his charge, but held Death in that place, for his queries were many.

"As for a fount, and so then for a great well? What place is Death's? Where does he ride, and how is he carried? Does he await the winner, or seek to choose who this shall be?"

"Why, Death endures, you Highlander. Death ever endures, for he has the time that you, charged with turning back the first strike of Pestilence, have not at all."

The hero moved with the speed that heroes do, that mystic speed that safely bypasses meddlers and molesters, constables and caterwaulers, geniuses and the greedy. The hero shooed away, as heroes do, the innocent and the interfering, the curious and the crazed, the thrillseeker and the thrower down. The hero found, as heroes do, that his directions were free of error or cipher, misreading or misleading, nerves or nattering. The fount remained a fount, and this was always certain, for this is what heroes do, and need scarcely be noted, save that it must be.

But as heroes must, can their sworn foemen do less?

In the sleeping-place kept by that Highlander, his Lady was stirred by the presence of another. Calling out to her lover, she was not to see him.

"Highlander, you have tarried overlong. Sought you that fiendish Oldest, and is he with you now?"

War moved forward, and spoke only one word.

"Greetings."

Cassandra sought another corner, but from there emerged Famine, who spoke only one word.

"Greetings."

And her last egress was cut all away, as a bodkin she knew well found purchase in her ribs.

"Greetings. I return now your sweet gift to your master Pestilence. And I will vouchsafe that for the Highlander--He is not here."

Though staggered, the lady thrashed about and would try to gain back herself.

"You are not made my master. Had I but known in times agone that you were made as me, then know sure I would have made my first task to cut your head free of its evil moorings!"

But Famine quick gained her sword, War harshly gained her hand, and the dagger of Pestilence found her heart, not once or twice but many times ere she was lifted away.

Death had made well his warning, and Pestilence had crafted well his reminder, both to that Highlander and aye, to Death as well. Yet was another reminder in the offing? And who would do best to keep reminders, and in so doing, keep well their living head?

"Brother Death, pray tell me true. How many were slain, when the beplagued mist arose from that fount, to do our work, and begin our work again?"

That Death gave not true answer, nor lie did he proffer up.

"Would Pestilence now have Death gain in his purview omniscience? I was not about, when our battle was joined. Death comes after such beginnings, and is not known to merry himself with odd preliminaries."

Pestilence was all calm and peace, to see him, and to see him was not to view him at all.

"Yet what then does Death merry himself with? A missive to The Highlander? That Highlander who surely, with great aid and comfort, has all undone our potion, and the smallish torpedo which was the wrapping of our tender gift? I must think such surely, else unthinkably, a plan well crafted by Death has proven, when leaping from paper used to skin flayed, that it was judged, and being judged, found greatly wanting!"

Now a trap of ciphers was laid, and in this trap, the greatest riddle of all yet lay untouched. Who better knew Death? Death, who had made no choice that may be discerned? Pestilence, who knew Death well and perhaps knew him too well? Or the one who made a leap all of faith, on one who held no faith to lose, and this is known?

"If my scheme was so judged, its younger brother shall evade all such judgment. If the foe of the Mounted Gods was made wise to such a scheme, I say that this is all of a yet greater scheme. And in this scheme shall the foe who has driven me away from my true self be brought low for all time."

Pestilence walked broad circles around his brother, and still his calm ruled him, his storm set all aside.

"I tell you that Pestilence and Death are of one mind, and one thinking. I say that this is so."

"Death must needs gainsay Pestilence. My brother's secret paths to his goals are ever his own. They are possessed by no other, even to myself."

"Yet Pestilence is insistent, and says that there is fearful symmetry twixt and tween the very brains of Death, and of Pestilence. Death sits patiently at all times, at the good right hand of the grim creator."

"Nay I say, and again, I say nay. Pestilence and Death are not the ones you speak. Our goals are one, but the brothers are four, and we are two of those brothers. United are we, save for form and thought."

Pestilence did then grasp up a smallish infernal device, yet it was made not to guide idiot boxes, nor to rouse sleeping vehicles. It was for but one direst purpose, and this was to make myrrh of water, this to crucify a city's whole. As he spoke thus, he bid Death see what he could see, caught well in the dankest of jails.

"This will place my gift, I should think, into the heart of a much larger fount, a new wine for Bordeaux, the last wine most shall ever drink of, for it is known that wine is a detriment to vitality. This wine contains the last of all truths, and that truth is yours, Brother Death. When the cipher is called, there shall be both our best works, and this is known by you. But bear witness to the symmetry twixt us. Was it in my ken that the Highlander should be led away by Death, and thereby rescue that one small fount? Be certain this was so. Was it in your ken that whilst the clown was made to play with spray-bottles, that we should reclaim that which was ours? I am certain that it was. Our Cassandra is doubly certain of this, and she said this, and she swore this, and she did so that War and Famine saw fit to cover their ears, to hear such oaths! Our Cassandra knows her Lord Death, and her Lord Pestilence knows Death better still, and aye, better than Death. I cry only for The Highlander, and I cry well. Were I so betrayed, why then Death should surely die!"

Death but curled a lip, and spat well into the cage beyond, striking that quarrelsome girl of ages past.

"Death shall not die by Highlander, be he foppish clown or fierce killer of scar-throated giants, or e'en the odd red-haired boy spotted in visions of seers I have employed. Pestilence has spoken well and truly of how great we are known to the other. Yet our most exalted and flawless of schemes shall surely bring that Highlander to this place. Of him, I care not, and I care nothing, and I care far less than not or nothing. But e'en a fool's wrath carries with it the means to destruction. For he has turned away from my countless good and honest exhortations to keep well his head, and perhaps endure near to myself. He casts his lot with greatly thickheaded thoughts of heroism. He sees this as the truth of reality. And what illusions this clown claims to see, even the Oldest may not dissuade him of."

That Pestilence drew in the concern of his brother's face, and it was as though it could sustain him, or was this his thing he saw?

"Death is well to be concerned of our foe, but yet it is again that we have thought as one, aye, prior to your own thoughts. Look about you. Where is our Famine? Where is our War? Why, I have sent them away and away, and when they should come again, I swear that they shall hold that Highlander's once-living head. And then shall I permit them to fight and tear over it. What sport shall that be, after I claim his hair's back lock? I will wear it, I think, and let every immortal know who was bested by The Mounted Gods!"

Death remained as he always had, yet how was he always? Again, is this known to any?

"Then let me say this of that, Brother. It is a good thing. Fit and meet, and it will remove an obstacle to my plans, and I will vouchsafe this."

That Highlander felt well the presence of another, as he rounded one of many corners in his search and in his delayed return. And in his gaze came War itself, and Famine, he espied with all speed, was quick upon him as well. The dagger of Famine drank of his face, and this was after only glancing blows were tossed about. It came soon that the three were upon a bridge. and bridges, it is known, must needs surely be crossed, and there and then turning back is no longer known. War pointed and laughed heartily, thinking his foeman the very weakest of all the creatures he had faced.

"Oh, what sport, you child! The Mounted Gods welcome you to the last place you will see or know. The head of Famine will gain War the head of The Highlander. The head of War will likewise gain Famine the very same head, and I will call this head my piece of furniture. You should give over that living head, that I may sit on it in glory."

Famine fell down into the battle with The Highlander, and his sword's movements were embodied chaos, and rebirthed frenzy, and no grace at all.

"War does not speak for Famine. Great fat and stupid War forgets that the Highlander is only so bound by crashing lightning if he should slay a Mounted God, and this he will never do! Now, it is said that there is a Highlander who is as a bull steer, and he is raspily voiced. But Ho! I think that this is that other Highlander, highly voiced, and to me, he shall be as tenderest, most succulent veal. Here, you should let me eat of your head."

That Highlander proved well that he was done merely meeting Famine sword for sword, and now met him dagger for dagger as well, yet not fore that same dagger met Famine's cheek, and now the two were oddest twins.

"Did Famine think that he held the only dagger in all the world? Or that no one else at all knew well of its art? Perhaps it is that your brothers should have let that jailer live, and watched over Famine, who is what he has assaulted War as, and crazed for certain. As for the veal you seek, I deny first to Famine any taste of such meat, and that is even if it were not my own flesh. I deny second to Famine the skill he claims with dagger and sword, for that horridly voiced tenor wields his better, and he is dead a year or better! I deny third to Famine the destined nature of his victory. I think that you are the luckless child Kenneth, and by that I do not refer to the trickster Immortal I have known. Know that I deny last to Famine that thing he holds most precious, the feed-hole that has taken down so many good and decent folk to that infinite gullet. You have said that I have neither chance nor choice. I say instead--You Have No Head!"

War saw the lightning crash, but trusted not his eyes. He heard well the head of Famine fall free of its place, and crash like a torpedo pon the bridge deck, yet trusted not his ears. War smelled the fetid mix that he knew as Famine's blood, and he smelled this as never before, yet trusted not his nose. Yet when his hands grasped upon a head he himself had yet fancied taking, he trusted that his touch was no deceiver.

"Famine, you great and foolish beast! To be slain so, and by an infant, as well. You were neither fit nor meet nor worthy, brother. Would that these aspects would have been yours."

The Highlander stood as Famine could not any longer, and as bold as Pestilence was he now.

"Hear me, O War! I am sorely weakened, yet this shall not long be so. Oer this span I fall, as fell heartless Famine, and as shall fall no less than he who is called for Pestilence! Make this known to him, for I would have him ready, for our final battle this shall be!"

Fell away he did, past the enraged grasp of War, and at last past the grip of the fading bolts of Famine, taken well from his severed head. War grasped up his brother's weapon, and looked upon it, and thought of the head it failed to take.

"The sword of Famine is less worthy, even than he, but bear it back I shall. Yet Famine is gone. Who, then, will sup upon the slain, left in the path and track of War? This thing of ours has grown messy, and untoward, and some of its sport is done. Shall we ever laugh again, if him who learned the Clown of Gotham-town laughs no more as well?"

Caged as a beast, the Lady Cassandra cast away the meal given her by Death, and cried out an oath as she went.

"Think you this to be fit or meet? I have unmade your quarrelsome girl, and I have unmade the false gods who whispered to me that they were as my breath. Your broken little thing is gone, you Death. We'll not be taken in anew. The Highlander is made a clown by you, yet Cassandra is not. And when his blinders fall all away, the head of Death falls with them, this I swear."

Death sat poised to strike, or to move, as ever he does, and ever so he shall. Yet in the here and the now, he merely spoke.

"You say well what you are no longer, Lady. Yet bowl-throwing was a true mark of that quarrelsome girl I knew. You speak of my deceptions, yet these deceptions speak less to my glibness of silvered and gilded tongue, than to what a fool believes he sees, which no wise man has the power to reason away. Many have been well deceived, and yet it is noways the Oldest who has deceived them. Know you this as well. When that wild schemer and poor singer hunted me unto my own death, my neck I bent down to The Highlander, yet no katana tasted my neck or its bones. Oh, behold you, brooding and fretting the last of your moments! Was every minute misery, when we knew one another? Was every hour hell, every day disaster, every week worrisome, and every year your pain?"

At last it was that Lady Cass broke her silence, and gave with no pause, and no let.

"My Lord Death has forgotten much, and disowned even more. I came to you not on knees, but in a sack meant for goods. I moved for you not for devotion, but for the desolation of my soul. I lived for you not for the truth of your strength, but for the lie of power you did not have. I served you not because was your lady of courts, but a broken, wretched thing that I do look back upon, and for her I have contempt near to that I hold for you."

Death is cruel, and Death is cold, yet Death may be mercy, this known to all. And mercy may be crushing, or it may take away the crushed.

"Hear me, you Lady. Nay, truly and well hear me, as though mine were not the words of one so despised by you, and rightly thus. Though I was no god, I was your world, for so I willed it. I but spoke, and so you ate hearty or died starving. I but gestured, and so you were beaten or told how fit and meet you were. I but glanced, and my humors were yours. Pray thee, do not despise that girl. She was not you. She had no chance to grow strong, or become better than she was. In time, the life we gave her was all she knew. It comes that jailer and jailed share a bond untoward and unique to them. Mallory, that wordsmith of fallen Arthur, had as his first admirers the guards and their warden, and they fought assassins sent to slay him. There is that bond I have spoken upon. In time, there is even love. But that was then, and this is now. Pestilence is mighty, and Cassandra must please him. Pestilence is mighty, and Death must please him. Death must please him, now as then. Now as then, Death may be no protector to Cassandra, though she should wish this of him, as she wished it then, and found that he could not. And did this fuel the fires of your rage, to ignore that I would place the needs of Death oer yours? I will surely vouchsafe that it did, for such is self-evident."

That Lady bore her gaze well upon Death, and regarded him as one might regard a little thief, and she showed him this respect.

"Talk not of love. This word I have heard, and it lays slumbering in distant memory, yet it does not and it has not and it will not and it never shall while it slumbers dream of you. For know I well of what you pose as, and what you walk as, and what you truly are, and this is known of Pestilence, whose head I shall hold in the hand that does not hold yours. And you shall hold mine, and he shall hold mine, and it is in this manner only shall I bow down to either Death Or Pestilence! Now as then, for Death has spoken well."

"Does my Lady await The Highlander? Await your end, rather, for he has surely met his. He is a smear to War's club, and he is a meal to Famine, and his head shall sit by yours. It need not have been so, had Death but ruled the day."

That Highlander was turned away, at a small bestiary made for small beasts, that pass time for those that need to. His quest was not there.

"Where dwell my foe-men, and my friend half-true, and that lady, known from the time I was a boy? Where are the schemes hatched to rebirth a world now gone, and thereby bring hell on Earth? Or is this Highlander quite the fool called by The Oldest and aye, by the elder Highlander, as well? For where would the servants of hell find respite, save for the place nearest to the bowels of the Earth, and near enough to water to keep the burning souls within from consuming whole their mortal frames. Where boats and ships launched unseen by any, it is there a hidden plan of horseman will come to know revelation."

Pestilence stood in that very place, and he did strike his brother War with harshest queries, meant to gain harshest truth.

"Tell me true, War. Does Famine linger, burying away the headless body of The Highlander?"

"I say to Pestilence that he does not do this."

"Tell me true, War. Does Famine lend away his sword to you, that it may be cleansed, honed, and brought to a sheen?"

"I say to Pestilence that Famine would ne'er lend away his sword, and not to War."

"Tell me true, War. Are we four brothers, those Mounted Gods Of Old?"

That War fell wholly silent, and so it was that Pestilence gave the harshest and truest of answers.

"I say to War that Famine has a head no more. I say that we are now three brothers, and not four, that we ever after shall be four no more!"

"You Pestilence. Pray let War go forth anew, that there shall be Highlander no more! This I have sworn."

Yet it was that Pestilence with a glance led War and Death further below, and to the caged lady, both prize and bait.

"The Highlander shall seek his lady, and this is known. If he gains this place, let him gain it only as her pretty-little pretty-little arse falls flat for lack of the head that keeps it in motion. Joy not, you quarrelsome girl. Your Champion endures only so long as he is not in my sight. Come now, You Death. Bordeaux has long known wine, and so shall it know bitterest dregs and deadliest wine well-soured."

Time in its course reached then the End Of Days, or at least such was approached. Time slowed in its course to nothing. There was the motion of War's axe-blade, honed to destroy forever that once-girl held caged. There was the motion of Death and Pestilence, headed upwards to bring low a whole city, this merely as a beginning. Yet one who was all unyielding would stand and block this last and most dread of all motions. Surely was now The Highlander, and at last came this, the final battle.

"And Lo, I Beheld Two Riders, And A Third After Them, and then no more. Prophecy, where is thy sting when Famine is at last sated? However shall the End-Times proceed in such a fashion? Should I send missive to the fearsome Leviathan, and ask that the Rapture be hurried along? Do we need now only six seals? What are the Mounted Gods to become and what then of the schemes of Pestilence?"

With a great fury greater far than any mere Fury, Pestilence pointed at The Highlander and made call to warn his foe away.

"What shape the Apocalypse, asks the Highlander? Know then that this shall be no burden to brains that are scattered about, ere Last Judgment is called, by angel's horn or horned beast. But the one head purchases by its obedience the strong purchase of another head, to remain atop soft shoulders, pretty neck and firm breasts. It is solely by the bending of Highlander neck that Cassandra endures. The raising of his katana, though, shall see her destroyed, e'en should fall the three you have so mocked. What say you, Highlander? Shall I command of War to undo your Lady, and in the death-blow report that this is done by grace of her own fervent lover?"

The Highlander was overmatched, and this rather sorely. But were any there well shocked or put off their mark, when Duncan stopped, and drew his sword?

"Ask, you Pestilence. Ask well of my endurance. But ask it, I pray you, of The Cat, and of The Hunter, and ask it of The Singer, and of The Viking, and of the Voice's student. But tarry not, as you await their response, for only the true Judgment Day will yield you those. And I too shall command War to go and do as he must, for Cassandra would not endure, and e'en have herself not be made at all, if her life purchases the victory of Pestilence. Go then, and say that she shall watch three enter the pit from her perch. Oldest, stand you with me?"

Death walked after War, and gave an answer such as was known for him to give.

"Death stands with victory, and this is known to and spoken of by The Highlander."

The dance of swords began, and this was fierce, this battle of primal force and emergent prince.

"Know you, boy that Pestilence is the way, and he is the word."

"I gainsay you, Pestilence, and say that your path is largely untrod, and your book is one of empty pages."

Up was met with up, and down with down, and blow with blow, and block with block, parry with parry, and dodge with dodge. It would be so for twelve hours, though it could seem twelve minutes, so was the movement of sands through the hourglass.

"Know, you merest man, that Pestilence is both sunshine and shadow, and he is darkness and he is light. He is the yin, and he is the yang."

"I gainsay you, Pestilence. Your days and your nights are all overcast with clouds, and you may see them now from neither side, so unbalanced a creature are you."

War was met by Death, and honed his axe still further, to find their foe was so near.

"Pestilence has made it all as crystal. If the unthinkable is thought, then the rushing feet of The Highlander shall only catch sight of my axe's good works. If the certain is certain, then Pestilence shall lean his foeman's neck this way, and still shall my axe drink deep. Or is your blade thirsty for such, Death? If so, you answer only to Pestilence, for War yields gladly her living head to you. Oh, but a strange thing goes on. They both yet approach, brother and bother, and their long fight draws them towards us. So it is that our quarrelsome girl grows calm and still at last."

Yet as Lady Cassandra was grabbed roughly out from her cage, there to meet her death, Death now fell away, and in his place stood The Oldest, and The Oldest did block the axe of vengeance. So it was that great waves of shock rode through War, aye, and through the doomed lady. None spoke, and no eyes met for this thing.

A great ruin was made of glass and wood as approached Pestilence and The Highlander. What joy without surcease for even the most hated of foes, to find that one who may be that truest match.

"The Highlander keeps my very feet in motion as we go, and this is almost unknown to me. How well you persist, this after calling the axe of War down upon your Lady's neck. I think that you will next lie together not in a bed, but on a cloud."

"Stay, then, Pestilence, for I would have you know me better. My persistence speaks not of her neck, but of yours. And worry you not of clouds."

In a place so confined and small, may two great pitched battles be joined and not be seen, one by the other? Of course they may not, and of course they were not. Pestilence saw The Oldest battle gainst' War, his most sacred proclamation all undone. War saw Pestilence, and through his eyes begged well for guidance through a place he knew not. Pestilence cried out to see this, and well he might do such a thing.

"Death! You will hear the words of your Master! Death! You will hear the words of your brother!"

War took back the fight, and more than once was The Oldest about with no sword. Yet ever more pointed were his fevered queries to one who moved so oddly to him.

"Death! You do not behave as Death ought, nor as a Mounted God. Heed you well the words of your brothers!"

"War! I am The Oldest Of All Immortals, and The Oldest is barely known to some, and to you not at all, and nor to Pestilence. More, I have sworn this on plains of Palestine, and above a great pit, and now I swear it well here, and finally--We Are Not Brothers!"

And at this, battles pitched and tossed became ever more so, with bold Pestilence's heart ripped away, and the heart of The Highlander begun to beat anew. War moved with his bulk to crush The Oldest, and yet his legs were the greater traitors. The Oldest felt eyes not known to salt go to fog and leak as they never had. War's last movement was then. Pestilence was yet still virulent, e'en at this low measure.

"Know you, you Highlander. I am The Master Of The Night. I am the secret face of your world's present, and I am the one true face of its future. I am made The Alpha. I AM MADE THE OMEGA!!!"

"I gainsay you in all this as well, Pestilence. The Night knows you not. You are not the Alpha. You are not the Omega. You are not the present. You are not the future."

It was done.

"You Are The Past."

The Oldest and The Highlander struck well, and they struck as one, and the first rule of the lives of immortals was well obeyed, as The Highlander completed his gainsay. The Oldest now felt the sting of salted water anew.

"Let it be known that of all his brothers, Methos loved Silas best of all, and Silas have I slain, while his gaze I ne'er met any at all."

And in this once-only a storm began, and it was so great and so fierce, that it was rival to the storm made by the elder Highlander, when he away and away took the head of the scar-throated violator of his wife. And that storm was known well to be so horrid, that Scotsman dreamed that his was the Prize, and the Earth was laid waste by the sun. In such dreams may a body see other worlds, and men that fly on metal wings. They may also see a Pestilence who dodges, and does not fall. They may see another taken by a spirit known to be fierce.

I am a Watcher. I would ne'er gainsay such accounts, for as learned later, there is no one path, no one verse. The verses are multiple, and sometime seen by one another, as such when The Highlander and an errant angel walked where there was no Highlander. These accounts are wholly valid and wholly true, in the verses they are so. But I see no angels, and must walk where I walk, and verse of the verse I know. So know well that Pestilence was relieved of his head and did die, beyond tricks or traps. His essence walked in no other. Yet this Watcher must ask: Why would there be such accounts, if they pointed not to a greater truth? For we have spoken of the loss of a head, and the death of a Pestilence, and where his hot spirit did not wander. Mark well that we have never once spoken that such was the end of all his tales. Could those whose accounts say such speak not of mirrored realms, but to the endurance of that which is more devious than mere evil?

Yet what of the endurance of Once-Death, now The Oldest once again? For when the storm that jumped pell-mell between two men was all done, so it seemed for the Oldest. War was dead, and now it was that the Lady he threatened held his axe, and she meant to use that axe.

"You have spoken of your love for War, and War's head have you taken off. Yet does this erase the enslavement of Cassandra? Does it restore her peaceful village? Does it restore her people? Does it undo violation, and violent spells? Does the head of War turn all your endless lies to truth? I will let War's own axe choose thus, and I think I know how it will choose."

The Oldest was as a broken thing, and if this was all his art, it was art well-performed. No hand was raised to stop the axe, and yet the Lady of Voices heard well a voice.

"My Lady, turn away your wrath! I would see him yet endure. Do this for one who has held you tender, and for your own ravaged spirit. Put away the axe of brutish War, and be free at last."

That Cassandra looked as one betrayed, and spoke so doubly well.

"You would see him endure? Is The Highlander again deceived of The Oldest?"

"Nay, this Highlander knows well what he is, and what he has been. I beg of you to let the Oldest grow older still."

What stayed the hand of vengeance? Was it the gentled exhortations of a kind and good lover? Was it a desire to wield not a weapon of her foemen? Was it a choice to have the guilty stew in their inner filth? Was it forgiveness for and the voice of a young girl, whose happiness was only to please her Lord Death?

"Grow older with him, then, Highlander. For you shall not do such with Cassandra. Do not seek me anew."

And there was no sound at all, after the axe fell thirsty as she went, save for the sobs of The Oldest and the slow, palsied risings of the one who still called him friend, yet still knew him not at all, and like as not never would.

In a place of the dead stood Once-Death, and with him The Highlander. Many matters were now settled. Many more would not see settling.

"The Oldest has proclaimed that once it was that the life of Pestilence lay in his hands. The Oldest knows that Pestilence was as constant as the northern star, and truer in his questing, and his quest and his goal was you. Why was he not slain, then? The Oldest has shown well that his deepest heart lays with endurance."

"I had other concerns, and I let them rule me, when the matter of Pestilence would seek to rack my poor brains. Would his head have eased my path? Aye, I will vouchsafe that. But he was as I, and I held him to myself, and if such as we had genitors, ours would be the very same one. Should Death have called Pestilence unfit for endurance, then Death must also call this fate for Death, and The Oldest has ever chosen to endure."

The Highlander's game was not yet done, and he pressed his verbal incursion well and fairly.

"Was it then that the Oldest schemed to place my Lady in the hands of Pestilence, his hopes high that The Highlander could where The Oldest could not, this to destroy Pestilence and all his works?"

"If the Highlander would call such truth, then perhaps it even is truth."

Yet ere they could leave the dead to their place, one last query had call to be answered.

"What then, of The Oldest for Lady Cassandra? How stands she in the reckoning of a long, long life?"

The Oldest felt wholly in that moment every last second of his near-to three hundred score.

"The regrets of my life number near to a thousand, Highlander, and she is but one. My regrets number near to a thousand--and in my life she is but one."

There we will leave them, these princes of the universe. Here they belong, fighting to survive, in a war with the darkest powers. One is the Oldest, and he shall ever be inscrutable, perhaps even to The Oldest.

The other was born twenty score agone in a place called Glenfinnan. He yet endures. This tale is merely one that calls him by name, and in these tales, he faces others of his Immortal kind, and this battle is pitched, and the prize is the head of the loser, and his power with it. I am a Watcher, charged to record, and not to speak, or at least this is the ideal. My kind knows the great truth of his. There are many claimants to The Prize, yet all but one must fall away. May that one be Duncan Macleod-The Highlander.

For if not him, there are others not like him at all, and we have witnessed their tales this long day. And though their heads are gone, and their deaths true, and their spirits free of any body, is this truly their last tale?

Would You Know More...?


End file.
